Team leaders

Dr. Julianna Kobolák

Dr. Julianna Kobolák is an agricultural engineer, who specialised in molecular biology (MSc) and holds a PhD in Animal Husbandry. Get her diploma at the legal predecessor of the Hungarian University of Agriculture and Life Sciences (MATE, Gödöllő, Hungary). She also has a second diploma as an economist (MSc, Budapest Business School, Budapest, Hungary.

Her main research interest is the study of tissue, reproductive, and embryonic stem cells of different species (fish, rabbit, mouse, human), as well as induced pluripotent stem cells, generated by genetic reprogramming, in particular, their application potentials as disease models, drug development platforms, gene therapy models and toxicological test systems. She has considerable management and industry experience as she was a research director (CSO) of a Hungarian biotechnology SME for seven years. She has participated in several national and international projects, including 19 EU projects (4 of which are coordinated by the SME). She has significant international research connections. An active PhD supervisor. Her total number of publications exceeds 200, with over 1800 citations.

Currently works at the Institute of Aquaculture and Environmental Safety of MATE as a Senior Research Fellow, involved in research and teaching activities. As the coordinator of the AGRIGEP project, both her own scientific career and EU project coordination experience help her to deal with the task.

Dr. Jana Mazancová

Dr. Jana Mazancová is vice-dean for development at the Faculty of Tropical AgriSciences (FTA) and a senior researcher at the Department of Sustainable Technology, FTA, Czech University of Life Sciences Prague (CZU). Since 2004, she has been involved in research focused on sustainable development through socio-economic aspects of waste to energy approach in the context of developing as well as European countries. She is also active in gender equality and rural women’s empowerment in rural development (collective actions, land access etc.). She has strong expertise in the field of research and teaching. She was hosted as an invited lecturer at several universities in Asia and sub-Saharan Africa. She worked as a chief coordinator or senior expert team member in more than 20 ODA projects covering regions in Sub-Saharan Africa, Asia and Eastern Europe funded by the EU or the Czech Republic Development Cooperation and EU Operational Programmes. She also works as an independent evaluator of the international development project and is a member of the Czech Evaluation Society. She is a member of the CZU Working Group on Gender Equality Plan, and a member of several professional bodies focused on sustainable development and gender equality at HEIs. She is a principal investigator of the Horizon Europe Widera project AGRIGEP, aiming at Gender Equality Plan implementation in R&I at six European HEIs.

Prof. Štefan Bojnec, Ph.D.

Prof. Štefan Bojnec, Ph.D., is Full Professor of Economics and Head of Department of Economics at the Faculty of Management, University of Primorska, Koper-Capodistria, Slovenia. As a researcher and visiting professor, he was active at several institutes and universities in several countries in Europe, the USA and Asia. He has participated in several national and international research projects, including in several EU-Phare ACE projects, EU-COST projects, projects of the EU Framework Programme and Horizon. Furthermore, he has participated in several multilateral and bilateral projects with various countries. He was also a member of several expert groups, such as at the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development, the European Commission, the United Nations (UN), the World Bank, European Agency for Reconstruction, and the German Society for Technical Cooperation (GTZ/GIZ). In the years 1996-1997 he worked for the Food and Agriculture Organization of the United Nations (FAO). He has published articles in leading scientific journals. In 2008, he received the Slovenian state Zois recognition for important scientific achievements in the field of economics.

Dr. Marta Peña

Dr. Marta Peña is an Industrial Engineering and holds a PhD in Mathematics, both from the Universitat Politècnica de Catalunya – Barcelona Tech (UPC). She is an associate professor at the Department of Mathematics at the UPC and a member of the Institute of Industrial and Control Engineering (IOC) at the UPC. She teaches several math subjects in the Bachelor’s degree in Industrial Technology Engineering at the Barcelona School of Industrial Engineering (ETSEIB, UPC) and in the Master’s degree in Teacher Training for Compulsory Secondary Education and Baccalaureate (Mathematics specialty) at the School of Mathematics and Statistics (FME, UPC). She was deputy director (teacher training manager) of the Institute of Education Sciences (ICE) at the UPC from 2016 to 2019, and she is deputy director (head of bachelor’s degrees and responsible for social commitment) of the ETSEIB at the UPC since 2021. At present, she is a member of the Equality Commission at the UPC. Her research interests are applied mathematics, engineering education, innovation in higher and secondary education, and social aspects (gender, equity, diversity…) of STEM disciplines. She has participated in numerous research projects, has published more than 100 scientific works and has supervised several master’s theses and doctoral theses. She is a co-author of the guide “Guides to mainstreaming gender in university teaching. Industrial Engineering” (2020), edited by Xarxa Vives. She is a member of the team that received the first award M. Encarna Sanahuja YII Mention of excellence in the inclusion of the gender perspective in university teaching practice, given by the Government of Catalonia, in 2021. She is the responsible of the SOC-STEM (Social Impact of STEM disciplines) research group of the UPC.

Dr. Veronika Paksi

Dr. Veronika Paksi is a sociologist and hold a PhD in sociology. Works as a Research Fellow at the Institute for Sociology of the Centre for Social Sciences (Hungarian Academy of Sciences Centre of Excellence). Teaches sociology at University of Szeged, Hungary. Board member (from 2020) of the Association of Hungarian Women in Science (NaTE). Member of the Gender and Precarity working group within the ‘European Universities – Critical Futures. The Roles of Universities in European Integration’ project. Co-founder and Co-Chair of the Section for the Sociology of Work and Social Inequality of the Hungarian Sociological Association. Editorial Board Member of the Hungarian periodical Culture and Community. Her main research interests are gender equality in Research and Development (R&D); women in science (STEM); Gender Equality Plans; obstacles to academic careers; work-life balance; childbearing. She has participated in several domestic research projects (supported by OTKA and TÁMOP), and also in EFFORTI (Horizon 2020), and  currently in UNTWIST (Horizon Europe).

Dr. Lut Mergaert

Dr. Lut Mergaert is Research Director and Senior Consultant at Yellow Window (Antwerp, Belgium). She is a recognised gender expert, who has been the Principal Investigator and coordinator of numerous policy support studies on gender equality and has served as expert for the European Commission, the European Institute for Gender Equality, the European Parliament, the Council of Europe, UN Women, and others. She holds a PhD in Management Sciences from Radboud University Nijmegen (NL). Gender mainstreaming in research, and the adoption and implementation of gender equality policies more broadly, are her main research interests, on which she has published articles and book chapters. In recent years, she has been involved in several Horizon 2020 projects: as scientific coordinator in the Gender Equality Academy (GE Academy) and as gender expert in the institutional change projects GEECCO, SUPERA, GEARING-Roles, Gender-SMART, as well in the CASPER project that examined the feasibility to establish a European certification scheme on gender equality and in UNISAFE, which researches gender-based violence and sexual harassment in research and academia and develops approaches to combat these practices.