Štěpán Jurajda

The Government of the Czech Republic

Štěpán Jurajda has been the Mellon Endowment Professor with Tenure (under US permanent charter) at CERGE-EI and a member of the Executive and Supervisory Committee of CERGE-EI since 2004. Between January 2009 and December 2013, he served as the Director of CERGE at Charles University, and at the Economics Institute of the Czech Academy of Sciences (EI), where he is a Full Professor and a Senior Researcher, respectively. He is also affiliated with IZA, Bonn. He graduated in Econometrics and Operations Research from the Prague School of Economics and received his M.A. and Ph.D. degrees in Labor Economics from the University of Pittsburgh. Štěpán was also a Visiting Research Fellow at the Department of Economics at Princeton University. He was a member of the Executive Committee of the European Association of Labour Economists, and chair of the Economics Panel and the Social Sciences and Humanities Committee at the Czech Science Foundation. He has received the Gold Commemorative Medal of Charles University and was granted a Fernand Braudel Senior Fellowship at the European University Institute. He is a former member of the National Economic Council of the Government of the Czech Republic and former Vice-Chairman of the Research, Development and Innovation Council of the Government of the Czech Republic. He currently serves as Deputy Minister for Science, Research and Innovation of the Czech Republic.

Veronika Hunt Šafránková

The United Nations Environment Programme

Veronika Hunt Šafránková is the Head of Brussels Office of the United Nations Environment Programme (UNEP). Since April 2019 she has worked closely with EU institutions and Brussels-based stakeholders on key policy areas to strengthen partnerships, cooperation and joint efforts in addressing global environmental challenges. She joined UNEP after a four-year assignment at Charles University in Prague, during which she worked on internationalization and partnerships as Director of International Relations Office. Later, as a policy advisor based in Warsaw, Veronika was mainly involved in preparations for the establishment of the 4EU+ European University Alliance.

Prior to that she had worked for public administration in the Czech Republic since 2000. During the more than twelve years at the Czech Ministry of Environment she held a number of different management positions, including First Deputy Minister, covering various areas – international cooperation, sustainable development, EU environmental legislation, EU funds, national environmental policy, strategies and instruments, and representation of the Czech Republic in relevant European and international bodies.

Eva Volfová

The Ministry of the Environment of the Czech Republic

Eva Volfová was born in 1978 in Pilsen. In 2002 she graduated from the Faculty of Science of Charles University in Prague with a degree in environmental protection. Since then, she has worked in the field of nature conservation specialised in habitat mapping, Natura 2000, authorized reports (nature and biological assessments) and forensic expert opinions, field surveys and expert studies. She currently serves as Deputy Minister for Environment of the Czech Republic.

Radim Sršeň

The Ministry of Regional Development of the Czech Republic

Born in a true rural region in the North-East of the Czech Republic. After graduating from bilingual Czech-English grammar school he achieved a master degree in International and European Studies - Diplomacy at the University of Economics in Prague, where he continued also with his Ph.D. degree in International Political Studies, which he successfully graduated in 2011. Since 2011 he is an assistant professor at the University of Economics in Prague specialising in the European Union and the United Nations. After his studies he returned back to his born region, establishing LAG Šumperský venkov in 2008, working first as a LAG manager and later LAG chairman. His passion in LEADER brought him also on the European level, serving as a president of the European LEADER Association for Rural Development (ELARD) in 2014-2015 and as its vice-president in 2013 and 2016. Since 2010 he is a mayor of the Municipality of Dolní Studénky, since 2013 also a vice-chairman of the Association of Local Governments of the Czech Republic. Since 2017 he has been a representative of the Czech Republic in the European Committee of the Regions focusing on topics of rural development, LEADER/CLLD, smart villages, EU territorial agenda and regional policy. He has also participated in rural development projects in Georgia and Bosnia and Herzegovina. Since 2022 he serves also as a Deputy Minister of Regional Development of the Czech Republic.