Zoya Damianova

Zoya Damianova works as program director in charge of the strategic development of ARC Fund and the expansion of the portfolio of ARC Fund’s activities and projects in research and innovation policy studies and strategic analyses. Her current research focus is (i) on forward-looking studies - foresight studies in energy and environment, as well as technology assessment, (ii) RTDI evaluations, and (iii) research and innovation policy analyses – innovation in the public sector, workplace innovation, social innovation and innovation for sustainable development.

Zoya is currently coordinating the participation of ARC Fund in the following projects: ‘Complex Challenges – Innovative Cities’ (CCIC) and ‘Boosting European Games Industry’ (BOO-Games) , supported by the Interreg IVC program, ‘Energy Visions 2020 for South East European Cities’ (EnVision2020) and ‘Fostering Evaluation Competencies in Research, Technology and Innovation in the SEE Region’ (EVAL-INNO), supported by the South East Europe Transnational Cooperation Program, ‘Parliaments and Civil Society for Technology Assessment’ (PACITA), supported under FP7, and EUWIN – the European Workplace Innovation Network (EUWIN), supported by DG Enterprise and Industry.

During the years she has participated in a number of working groups at DG Research and Innovation of the European Commission: Blueprints for foresight actions in the regions, Foresight expert group 3 at the Standing Committee of Agricultural Research, and an expert group on International Cooperation in Science, Technology and Innovation.

Zoya holds MSc degree in heating, ventilation and air-conditioning from the Technical University - Sofia and MBA in corporate finance from the University of National and World Economy. She has participated in a fellowship program on technology transfer and SME growth in the USA (1998), and in trainings on foresight for practitioners (2004) and scenario building organized by UNIDO (2006).

Zoya Damianova had been previously employed at the Bulgarian-American Enterprise Fund (1994-1996), the Agency for Economic Analysis and Forecasting (1992-1994), and the Central Institute for Computing Techniques and Technologies (1990-1992). She works fluently in Bulgarian, English and Russian.

Contacts: zoya.damianova(at)online(dot)bg