About the Authors

João Sousa Andrade is Full Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and affiliated with CeBER. He holds a Doctorat d’État en sciences économiques form the University of Poitiers. His research interest includes money, monetary policy and applied macroeconometrics. He is author and co-author of many articles in academic indexed journals and chapters in Portuguese and French but mainly in English. He is reviewer and belongs to the editorial board of several international journals.

Helen Caraveli is Associate Professor at Athens University of Economics and Business. She has a PhD in agricultural economics from the University of London in 1985, MA in economics from the State University of New York at Binghamton in 1975 and BA in economics from Pierce (Deree) College in 1973. Her research areas include (a) regional inequalities in Greece and the European Union (EU) and the effectiveness of European cohesion policy, (b) the geographic allocation of economic activity in the course of European integration and (c) the impact of the CAP local/rural development policies on Greek rural areas.

Valentin Cojanu is Professor of international economics and business at the Bucharest University of Economic Studies (Romania). His research interests aim at integrating the various strands of social thought into economics in themes exploring development and the logic of social study. One particular sub-field is represented by the inquiry on defining economic frontiers and the impact on competitive advantages. He founded the Journal of Philosophical Economics in 2007 as an editorial project contributing to the reconstruction of economics as social science.

Gabriela Drăgan, PhD, is Full Professor at the Faculty of International Business and Economics, Bucharest Economic University, Associate Professor at the National School of Political Science and Public Administration and at the Romanian-American University and Director General of the European Institute of Romania (EIR). Professor Gabriela Drăgan has more than 20 years of teaching and research experience in the field of European Integration. She is member of the European Commission’s Team Europe network – Speakers on European Affairs and Director of the Romanian Journal of European Affairs. She has coordinated various research, training and communication projects and participated as a speaker in numerous prestigious national and international conferences and seminars.

António Portugal Duarte is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and affiliated with CeBER. He received his PhD in economics from the University of Coimbra. In addition to teaching, he is the author or co-author of over 50 publications in national and international scientific peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and conference proceedings. He serves as a reviewer for several international publications.

Maria Adelaide Pedrosa da Silva Duarte is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics of the University of Coimbra and a researcher affiliated with the Group for Monetary and Financial Studies (GEMF). She is PhD professor and PhD supervisor in the fields of economic growth and economic policy. She has 40 years of teaching experience mostly in the field of macroeconomics (BSc, Masters and PhD). She serves as a reviewer for several international publications. She has participated in several international researches and teaching programmes. She has published widely in the areas of economic growth, human capital, regional development, education, growth and policies. She has participated in various European and national research projects.

Sylvia Herrmann is senior scientist at the Institute of Environmental Planning, Leibniz Universität Hannover, Germany. Her academic background is in agricultural sciences and environmental biology. She holds a PhD from Hohenheim University and habilitated at Stuttgart University. Dr. Herrmann works in the field of rural planning, land-use modelling and stakeholder processes.

Cristian Incaltarau is researcher at the Centre for European Studies of the Alexandru Ioan Cuza University and holds a PhD in Economics and International Business. His main research interest is related to the migration-development nexus (internal/international migration and the impact in the origin region/country, economics of remittances, migration transition drivers).

Andrew Lovett is Professor of geography at the University of East Anglia (UEA), School of Environmental Sciences, Norwich, UK. His academic background is in human geography, and since moving to UEA he has been working on applications of GIS, landscape visualisation software and statistical techniques. His current focus is on future rural land-use change including research on renewable energy systems.

Mihaela Onofrei is Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi (Romania), PhD supervisor in finance and Vice-rector. She has published 21 books, 100 articles, presented 102 papers at conferences and participated in 25 research grants. She is a national expert evaluator for quality in higher education, member of numerous boards (i.e., Doctoral School of Economics) and professional associations. She has contributed to the creation of several programmes in finance and public administration at the faculty.

Florin Oprea, PhD, is Associate Professor at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi, Romania. His main interest is in local financial management, public administration and public finance. A good part of his publications is related to European integration process and its effects. He was team member in several research grants, most of them related to European integration.

Gabriela Carmen Pascariu is Professor of economics and European economy at the Faculty of Economics and Business Administration, ‘Alexandru Ioan Cuza’ University of Iaşi. She is also Director of the Centre for European Studies, Jean Monnet Chair Ad Personam holder in EU sustainable development, regional cohesion and European policies and a Team Europe expert. With over 25 years of teaching and research experiences, she is currently an expert and evaluator in different commissions and a member in several national and international associations; she is the editor in chief of Eastern Journal of European Studies. Her key areas of expertise are the economics of the European integration, regional economy and policies, tourism and regional development.

Ester Gomes da Silva is Assistant Professor at Faculdade de Letras da Universidade do Porto and scientific researcher at IS – Institute of Sociology and CEF.UP –Center in Economics and Finance of Universidade do Porto. She holds a PhD, a MPhil and an undergraduate degree in economics (Faculdade de Economia, Universidade do Porto). Her research interests include long-run economic growth, structural change and Portuguese economic history as main topics.

Loredana Maria Simionov is researcher at the Centre for European Studies of Alexandru Ioan Cuza University of Iaşi and has a PhD in economics and international affairs. Her main research interests revolve around Eastern Europe and the post-Soviet space and EU’s relations with Russia and the eastern neighbours.

Marta Cristina Nunes Simões is Assistant Professor at the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra and a researcher affiliated with the CeBER. She holds PhD, Masters and bachelor degrees in economics from the Faculty of Economics, University of Coimbra. Her research interests include economic growth, human capital, innovation and applied econometrics. She is the author or co-author of over 40 publications in international scientific peer-reviewed journals, book chapters and conference proceedings.

Ewelina Szczech-Pietkiewicz Ewelina Szczech-Pietkiewicz holds a PhD in economics from Warsaw School of Economics (2007) and works there as an Assistant Professor at Institute of Foreign Trade and European Studies. She does research and publishes in subjects like competitiveness of national and regional economies; urban policies, growth and competitiveness; cohesion policy of the EU and its territorial dimension.

She gained international research experience at the Department of Business and Social Sciences of Aarhus University, University of Barcelona (internship at Urban Creativity, Innovation and Transformation Research Group), University of Glasgow (Dekaban-Liddle Senior Fellowship) and Iceland University. Her previous work experience includes mostly public administration institutions.

Ramona Ţigănaşu is currently the coordinator of the Research Department within Centre for European Studies (CES). During her experience at CES, she has been involved in several national and international research projects, publishing over 55 studies in regional development and institutional economics.

Johanna Werner is environmental planner with a PhD in landscape planning from Leibniz Universität Hannover. She works as landscape planner at the central office of Greater Stuttgart Region, Germany.