GATE’s sustainability in the long run depends on its capability to compete for funding and on being recognized as a reliable partner within the European Research Area. My role is to enable this capability by finding and creating opportunities, by animating strategic partnerships and forming effective consortia, by generating project ideas and transforming them into successful collaborative research projects and by developing capacity in GATE’s team to take maximum advantage of the research funding environment.

Irena Pavlova is Manager of the European Programmes and Projects at GATE Institute. She is responsible for the initiation, organisation and implementation of GATE’s research projects under various EU and national programmеs.
She is an Assistant Professor at Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University, specialized in software engineering and semantic interoperability.
Irena has been working in the industry for more than 20 years, managing various EU funded and industrial R&D projects. She has experience in managing and conducting research in more than 20 scientific and innovation projects funded by FP5, FP6, FP7, H2020, Interreg Europe and other programmes. Since 2009, Irena has been working as a European Commission’s external expert in different EU programmes and initiatives such as H2020, FP7, Future Internet PPP, CIP PSP EC programme. She was also involved in the Horizon Europe “The Future of Europe’s Manufacturing” and in H2020 “Services in the Future Internet” expert groups, to define the priorities of the respective EU programmes.