Susanne Giesecke is the project leader of EFP and also responsible for the production of Briefs and the communication with correspondents and other foresight networks.
Susanne is a Senior Researcher and Research Theme Leader at the Austrian Institute of Technology, Vienna. She got her PhD in political science from the Free University Berlin, Germany. Susanne was a researcher and lecturer at several universities in Germany, Austria and the United States. She has worked for private and public-private companies and accumulated experience not only in publicly funded research projects for the European Commission and national clients but also in the management of such programs on behalf of national ministries.
Presently, her main focus of work is qualitative innovation research, national innovations systems and competitiveness, technology policy (especially in areas of new and emerging technologies), technology assessment; evaluation of R&D programmes as well as foresight. She has been engaged in several research projects and foresights as well as foresight networks discussing such emerging technologies as biotechnology, the convergence of nano, bio, info and cogno (NBIC), quantum cryptography and other issues related to IT security.
Petra Schaper-Rinkel is a political scientist and joined AIT’s Foresight & Policy Development Department in 2009 as a Senior Researcher. Before joining AIT she was working for several years at Technical University Berlin and Freie Universität Berlin where she led a DFG-Project on the Governance of Nanotechnology. Her research interests include technology and innovation policy, science and technology studies, technology assessment, foresight and governance of future technologies. Recent projects include foresight-related projects, studies on the impact of science, technology and innovation policy, and evaluation of technology assessment and foresight in the governance of emerging technologies.
Matthias Weber is Head of Research, Technology and Innovation Policy Unit at AIT Foresight & Policy Development Department.
Matthias has been working for many years on foresight in support of national and European research, technology and innovation (RTI) policy. His expertise covers a broad range of thematic areas (e.g. ICT, transport, energy, security, environment) as well as cross-cutting issues of RTI-policy (e.g. strategic and multi-level governance, horizontal policy coordination, priority setting).
He is advising national and European institutions on matters of policy strategy related to RTI, and he was a member of the EC high-level groups on Key Technologies (2005) and on ERA Rationales (2007). Among other functions, he is also President of the European Techno-Economic Policy Support Network ETEPS, lecturer of innovation economics at Vienna University of Economics, and member of the steering board of the IEV Innovation Economics Vienna joint Master- and PhD-programme between AIT and Vienna University of Economics.
His current research interests include the impact of foresight on policy-making, the integration of innovation in sectoral and cross-cutting policies, and the governance of R&D collaboration networks.