Ilaria Conti is the FSR Coordinator of Strategy and Development and member of the FSR Cabinet. She’s an expert in energy markets policy and regulation, with an almost 20 year-experience in EU institutional relations.

Her career started in Brussels, where she lived for about 9 years and worked for the Permanent Representation of Italy at the EU, and the United Nations.

Ilaria entered the energy sector by joining EFET, the “European Federation of Energy Traders” and built her knowledge covering positions of increasing relevance in the association from 2005 until 2013.

In Brussels, Ilaria actively took part in the EU consultative processes leading to the development of major EU Regulations and Directives, such as the Third Energy Package, the RES Directive, EMIR, REMIT, Security of Supply regulation – as well as facilitating their implementation at national level, by interacting with the national regulators, TSOs and other energy stakeholders.

She joined the Florence School of Regulation in 2015 and was appointed Head of the FSR Gas area from its foundation in 2017 until 2023, contributing to its research and academic output and managing international research projects on market design, LNG, energy system integration. She inaugurated the Gas area’s workstream on decarbonisation, via renewable and low-carbon gases.

As Strategy and Development Coordinator, Ilaria is currently responsible also for the gender mainstreaming project “FSR Lights on Women” – which aims at improving gender balance in the energy sector.

In 2024, she has been appointed vice-chair of the United Nations Economic Committee for Europe (UNECE).

Leigh Hancher is Professor of European Law at the University of Tilburg. She is a part-time Professor at the Florence School of Regulation within the European University Institute and the Director of the FSR Energy Union Law Area. Her research interests include energy market regulation, EU state aids and energy market governance.  Her expertise, as well as her academic research, is focused on the changing role of the government in stimulating the liberalisation of traditionally heavily regulated sectors. She has also been a Professor at the Erasmus University in Rotterdam, a Visiting Professor at the University of Calgary, Canada, Head of Legal at the Energy Charter Secretariat in Brussels and a member of the Dutch Academic Advisory Council (WRR).

Leigh studied law at the Universities of Glasgow and Sheffield, and at the EUI. She obtained her doctorate in law, with distinctions, from the University of Leiden in 1989.

Drake is an energy economist with expertise at the intersection of economics, regulation, and finance – with a particular emphasis on the hydrogen, natural gas, and electric power sectors. Drake is currently a Senior Associate in Charles River Associates’ (CRA) Energy Practice. Drake focuses on advising global clients as they develop strategies related to energy market economics and infrastructure development. Drake also supports the development of expert testimony for domestic litigation and international arbitration disputes related to energy markets and infrastructure.

Prior to his current role, Drake was a graduate research assistant in the MIT Energy Initiative (MITEI). Drake was a co-author on the MITEI Future of Storage study and the architect of the hydrogen production tecno-economic analysis (TEA) module of the Sustainable Energy Systems Modeling Analysis Environment (SESAME). Drake’s Master’s thesis focused on modeling hydrogen network dynamics and assessing federal regulatory frameworks for the development of interstate hydrogen transmission infrastructure within the United States.

Drake’s work has been published in The Electricity Journal and other academic texts. Drake’s also been invited to speak both domestically and internationally on matters related to the regulation of hydrogen and system planning.

Drake earned a Master of Science in Technology and Policy, with a focus on Energy Economics and Finance, from the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) and a Bachelor of Science in Mechanical Engineering, with a focus on Operations Research and Economics, from the University of Texas at Austin.

Doina Radulescu  is professor for “State and Market” at the Centre of Competence for Public Management at the University of Bern, Switzerland. Following her doctoral studies  at the ifo Institute for Economic Research in Munich, she joined ETH Zürich as a PostDoc.  She spent research visits at Tel Aviv University, Israel and NHH Bergen, Norway. She is an applied economist with interests in Energy Economics and Public Economics. Her research interests focus on understanding how different government policies can promote renewable energy as well as the adoption of electric vehicles. Furthermore, she is also interested in the redistributive and welfare effects of such policies. Her publications featured in journals such as Energy Economics, Journal of Economics and Management Strategy, European Journal of Political Economy, or International Tax and Public Finance. In 2013 she was awarded together with Peter Egger the “Stanley Hoffmann Best Article Award” on French politics for their article published in the European Journal of Political on family policy and the number of children. Doina Radulescu is a CESifo research affiliate and member of the Oeschger Center for Climate Change Research at the University of Bern. She has successfully attracted research funding and worked on several projects financed by the Swiss National Science Foundation.

Bachelor’s in Public Policies and Management by the State University of Campinas (UNICAMP) and Master of the Interdisciplinary Program in Human and Applied Social Sciences (UNICAMP). Currently a PhD Candidate in the Scientific and Technological Policy Program (UNICAMP) and is a scholarship holder of DAAD in the Chair of Innovation Economics in Technical University of Berlin (TUB). Additionally, she is engaged in projects and activities as an assistant researcher in the Laboratory for Studies on the Organization of Research and Innovation (GEOPI) and Laboratory of Public Sector Studies (LESP). The PhD Candidate focus are regulations in public utilities (electricity, piped gas, and basic sanitation), and on science, technology, and innovation (STI) assessment.

Dr. Brendan Flynn is a lecturer at the School of Political Science and Sociology, NUI, Galway. His current research interests include maritime security and defence and security studies more broadly. He has also researched and published extensively on environmental policy and was Principle Investigator on the EPA funded EPIIC (Environmental Policy Integration-Innovation and Change) project, 2016-2019. He teaches European politics and Ocean and Marine politics and has lectured at the Irish Defence Force’s Joint Senior Command and Staff Course. He was a co-editor of the 2018 Defence Forces Review.

Júlia Machado currently works as a Marie S.Curie fellow at the National University of Ireland in Galway (NUIG) developing her PhD at NUIG’s School of Political Science and Sociology. Her research is part of the Solar2Chem H2020 Project where she compiles and analyzes measures and incentives for hydrogen and the solar chemicals industry. Since 2015 Júlia has been part of different renewable energy projects set in Brazil, Ireland, Spain and Portugal, working also as a collaborator of the Laboratorio CoEdPa initiative discussing, among other topics, the achievement of the Sustainable Development Goals. She holds an MSc in Water and Coastal Management (WACOMA Erasmus Mundus programme – UCa,UNIBO,UAlg) and a B.A in environmental management (Federal Institute of Rio de Janeiro).

Marten Ovaere is an assistant professor at the Department of Economics of Ghent University. He is a fellow at the Yale Center for Business and the Environment. Previously, he was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale University (School of the Environment) and visiting scholar at Toulouse School of Economics. His research interests lie in energy and environmental economics, with a focus on electricity markets, carbon pricing, and renewable energy, using a combination of theory, simulations, data, and field experiments.

Torbjørg Jevnaker is a Senior Researcher at the Center for International Climate Research (CICERO) in Oslo. She has a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oslo, and her research focuses on EU energy and climate policy from the perspective of public policy and administration. She is currently researching the implementation of EU electricity market rules as well as policy integration and the role of crises for EU climate and energy policy.

Having already led the now-concluded research project “Implementing Network Codes” (INC), she is the principal investigator of the research project “Europe’s evolving market design towards 2040: Electricity Market Reform and decision-making during its implementation” (EVOLVE, 2025-2029). Both projects were funded by the Norwegian Research Council, and involve collaboration with public and private organizations in the electricity sector.

In 2022, Jevnaker was a Robert Schuman Centre visiting fellow at the Florence School of Regulation. In 2024, she joined FSR as co-director of the FSR course on the European Green Deal. From 2025 onwards, this course has been transformed into Getting to Net Zero.

Carles Majó Casas is a lawyer at Verdia Legal. He has more than 20 years of accredited experience in the regulation of the energy sector. Energy Law, Public Law and Procedural Law Specialist. External lawyer for Naturgy; acting in judicial proceedings before the different jurisdictions (1994-2018). External Legal Adviser in a local public authority, advising in the field of Administrative Law (2013-2018). Speaker at training sessions and writer of the Energy legal blog of Verdia Legal.

Carmen Gimeno de la Fuente is managing partner at Verdia Legal and Secretary General of the European Association of Gas and Electricity Distribution Companies (GEODE). She has more than 20 years of accredited experience in the regulation of the energy sector – both at European and national level. Coordinator of the Working Group for the drafting of the statutes of the EU DSO Entity (2019-2020) and member of the Executive Committee of the European Commission Smart Grids Task Force.

Regular speaker at conferences, seminars and webinars about the national and international electricity and gas sector. Co-editor of various position papers of the European Association GEODE. Writer of the Energy legal blog of Verdia Legal.

Enric. R. Bartlett Castellà is a lecturer in public law at Universitat Ramon Llull, Esade, in Barcelona, Spain, where he has served as Law School‘s Dean. He is PhD in law and secretary-controller of local administration. He has been Deputy ombudsman of Catalonia (1993-2004). His most recent studies deal with the regulation of the economy to achieve a just energy transition, in issues such as energy communities, fighting energy poverty, investment protection, or to promote innovation.