Elisabetta Balzi

Directorate-General Research & Innovation (RTD), European Commission

Elisabetta Balzi is Active Senior Advisor, former Head of the Ocean, Seas and Waters Unit and Deputy Director of Healthy Planet at the European Commission Research and Innovation Directorate-General.
She was previously Head of the Bioeconomy Unit at the European Commission Joint Research Centre. She has been responsible for EU research and innovation on marine and inland waters and the EU Mission Restore our Ocean and Waters.
She previously co-ordinated the development and implementation of the EU Bioeconomy Strategy and Action Plan, and the EC Knowledge Centre for the Bioeconomy. She has overseen the co-ordination of the EU Framework Programme design, implementation and international co-operation in food, agriculture, forestry, the marine sector, biotechnology and the bioeconomy, from FP6 to Horizon Europe.
Previously, she was a research associate at Université Catholique de Louvain, Belgium, where she led research on antimicrobial drug resistance.
She holds a PhD in Sciences and a Master in Applied Sciences and Biotechnologies from the Catholic University of Louvain (Belgium), and a Master in Biological Sciences from the University of Turin (Italy).  She was also trained at Université de Paris-Sud Orsay (France), the Deustches Krebsforschungszentrum in Heidelberg (Germany), and the University of Michigan and Truman College in Chicago (USA). She is author of several articles in scientific journals.