Simon is an internationally recognised research manager and administrator with over 30 years’ experience and led research support in two universities. He has been chair of the UK association of research managers and administrators (ARMA) and sits on the European association (EARMA) board.  He has a professional doctorate in RMA and has led the NCURA funded Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) series of projects since 1996. 

Simon is also an editor of the Journal of Research Management and Administration (JoRMA) and a co-chair of the Journal of Research Administration (JRA) Author Fellowship Program committee.

Melinda is a Senior Pre-Award Grants Administrator and Manager of the Office of Research Services at Clemson University in South Carolina, US.  She has been in the field of research administration for more than a decade. Melinda holds US-based credentials for both the Certified Research Administrator (CRA) and Certified Pre-Award Research Administrator (CPRA) accreditations through the Research Administrators Certification Council (RACC). She has presented both nationally and internationally and has held several committee chair positions with National Council of University Research Administrators (NCURA) Region III. 

Melinda is currently a Co-PI on the latest iteration of Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP) research project and is also serving as President of Clemson University’s Staff Senate.

Madhuri heads the research operations at George Institute for Global Health in India, a public health and clinical research institute. She is an Indian Research Management Initiative (IRMI) fellow, funded by the DBT/Wellcome Trust India Alliance. She is also on the IRMI professional development course committee and is developing a curriculum for research managers and administrators in India. Madhuri has presented talks on promoting research management in several institutions in India and also speaks at IRMI webinars. She has also mentored a few early career research managers. Currently, Madhuri is a Co-PI on the latest iteration of Research Administration as a Profession (RAAAP III) research project.

Madhuri has a PhD in life sciences and postdoctoral experience in cell biology. She is presently, Head of Centre for Operational and Research Excellence CORE India at the George Institute for Global Health.

Beatriz is the EU Grants Officer at the RFA unit, of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência in Oeiras, Portugal since 2019. Her main responsibility is to actively assist the IGC Community in securing competitive EU funds for research and for other activities related to the current institute’s strategic goals, following IGC internal policies and conditions of EU funding bodies.

Beatriz graduated in Biology at the University Complutense, Madrid, Spain (2002). She holds a PhD in Development by Universidade Nova de Lisboa, Portugal (2007), having completed her doctoral research programme at Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência and at Instituto de Medicina Molecular da Faculdade de Medicina de Lisboa.

After more than 10 years in Basic Life Science Research she switched into a career in Research Management in 2014 when she joined ISPA-Instituto Universitário, as a Pre-Award Grant Manager. She became the Head of the Research Management Unit in 2015 where she coordinated a group of people in the Pre/Post- Award/Accounting administration. She also acted as the chief communication channel between the four Research Centers and the Rector of the University, and the University Board. Moreover, she was responsible for re-launching “Prémio ISPA” in 2016; she coordinated the scientific organization of the research internal conferences and she was in charge of the institutional hiring process for PhD holders under Law 57/2017 at ISPA.

Margarida supports institutions improving their grant portfolio for over a decade, currently heading the ITQB NOVA Science Funding Office, and previously the ISCTE-IUL (business research) and IMM (biomedical research) offices. She acted as evaluator (H2020, FP7, COST, FCT), assessor (EARMA Certification), advisor (H2020 MSCA Advisory board) and founding member of PIC, a national network of Research Managers. She is also Invited Professor at FCSH NOVA for the Research Management and Policy Post-graduation.

Margarida holds a PhD in Developmental Biology from UCL in UK, 2000.

Virginia is the Head of Grants Services at the European Molecular Biology Laboratory (EMBL) in Heidelberg, Germany since 2018. As an international organization at the forefront of Life Sciences covering the spectrum of molecular biology in 6 sites across 5 European countries, EMBL obtains funding from a wide variety of external funders. EU funds are EMBL’s main source of external funding.

After more than 6 years of providing support to EMBL research and services groups, including researchers at all career stages, she became the Head of the Grants Services department. She and her team provide pre and post-award support in applying for, obtaining, and managing external grants and fellowships.

Virginia holds a Master of International Business Administration and has been working with externally funded projects for the past 15 years. She has also worked as project manager of EU-funded coordinated projects and was responsible for strategic partnerships at a UN agency.

Linda is the Head of the EU Office at Kiel University (DE) and also spokesperson for the National Working Group of EU Funding Advisors at German Universities. She represents Germany in the Group of European Practitioners for Horizon Simplification. Until 2013 she was the Head of the European Team at Oxford University (UK) and member of the EU Research Projects Managers group of League of European Research Universities (LERU). She studied Politics and International Relations with French and Spanish at St Andrews University (UK), Sciences-Po Paris (FR) and Oxford University (UK).

Sheila heads the Research Funding Affairs Unit at the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência. She has dedicated the last 18 years of her career to Research Management, having a long-standing experience in the conception & implementation of pre-award grant management strategies at both the individual and institutional levels. She also has global experience in research funding policies and supporting Life Science researchers to assemble successful proposals for prestigious national and international research grant programmes. In addition, she creates and organizes a grant application training programme for in-house researchers and has coordinated/lectured advanced training modules on grant development at several Master and Ph.D. programmes.

Sheila was a founding member of the Portuguese network Plataforma de Interface à Ciência. Currently, she is an active member of the EU-LIFE Grants and Funding Working Group, and the European Association of Research Manager and Administrators (EARMA). She has also acted on certain occasions as an advisor for the Portuguese Research Council (FCT) on grant management programs and the Ministry of Science on career development & training for research managers.

Sheila holds a Biology Degree from the University of Porto, an M.Sc. in Plant Physiology and Biochemistry from the University of Lisbon, and a Ph.D. in Innate Immunity from the University Paris XI (France).

Luís is responsible for the implementation of the scientific, communication and financial strategies of the Gulbenkian Collaborative Centre and for establishing new national and international partnerships at IGC.

Before joining the institute in 2019 as the Executive Director of the Gulbenkian Collaborative Centre, he developed and managed institutional collaborations as Head of Global Activities at EMBO and acted as the Deputy-Head of the EMBO Courses and Workshops Programme, in Heidelberg. Previously, he served as the Executive Coordinator for the Scientific Council of Health and Life Sciences at FCT, in Lisbon.

Luis graduated in Biology at the University of Porto in 2002 and he holds a PhD in Biochemistry from the University of Coimbra for his work in chromosome biology at the Cancer Research UK, in London. After the PhD he was a postdoctoral fellow at IGC where he studied epigenetic mechanisms during cell division.

Mariana is the Project Manager of the H2020 Twinning SymbNET project, at the FCG-IGC.

Her main responsabilities are to coordinate the collaborative activities of the consortium and the interaction among all the partners, ensuring the project achieves its goals and impact.

Mariana holds a PhD in Biomedicine from the University of Lisbon, Portugal and she did a Postdoc at the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine in Berlin, Germany. After several years as a researcher,  she embraced a career in Science Management in 2021.

Silvia is a Pre-Award Grants Manager for 9 years, since September 2021 at the Science Funding Office of the ITQB NOVA, and previously at iMM (2019-2021) and CEDOC NOVA (2013-2019). Silvia holds a PhD in Cell Biology (2007, IGC and FCUL), and developed her post-doctoral work in animal behaviour at ISPA-IU (2007-2013).

Ana Sofia was recruited in September 2021 to work as a Pre-Award Grants Advisor at the RFA Unit of the Instituto Gulbenkian de Ciência (IGC) in Oeiras, Portugal, after 3 years of experience in Research Management as a Project manager at Faculdade de Ciências da Universidade de Lisboa.

Her goal at the RFA unit is to assist the IGC community in securing competitive funds for individual research projects and other scientific activities related to the current institute’s strategic goals, following the internal policies and conditions of the different funding bodies. Ana Sofia is responsible for searching & disseminating funding opportunities tailored to the institute`s needs, checking the regulations for applications, addressing researchers` application doubts, and notifying researchers of funding opportunities they can apply for. In addition, she has been providing professional guidance and support to postdoctoral grant proposals to competitive calls from relevant national and international funders and is currently training in the management of grant negotiations of contracts with funders.

Ana Sofia Alves holds a Ph.D. in Biosciences from Universidade de Coimbra and has five years of experience in Marine Ecology research as a post-doc at the University of Lisbon, Évora, and ISA.