Speaker: Dr. Anastasia Constantinou, Senior Officer at the Research and Innovation Support Service, University of Cyprus

Dr. Anastasia Constantinou is a Senior Officer at the Research and Innovation Support Service of the University of Cyprus. She is the Head of the Innovation Management Unit dealing with the protection and management of the intellectual property, the technology/knowledge transfer activities and the research and innovation contracts of the University. She also supports the activities of the Centre of Entrepreneurship, C4E of the University of Cyprus. Since February 2019, she is the YUFE, Young Universities for the Future of Europe, Institutional Coordinator for UCY, a strategic project for the creation of one of the first European Universities in Europe. Since October 2020, she is a member of the Policy and Framework Committee of the 7th Parallel Parliament for Entrepreneurship of Cyprus.

Anastasia combines academic, industrial, business and consulting background in Innovation, Entrepreneurship and Research for more than 25 years having lived and worked in three countries, UK, Greece and Cyprus. She actively supports the development of start-ups and spin-offs in Cyprus, having played a key role in the design and development of the IDEA Incubator-Accelerator and in the design and coordination of the IDEA Accelerator training for its first two cycles. She teaches academic and practical courses on entrepreneurship and Innovation, business model and business plan formulation and regularly provides mentoring to Cyprus based start-ups and spin-offs. She has played an instrumental role in the creation of academic spin-offs, in the patenting of technologies and in negotiating licensing agreements for the exploitation of research results from Universities and research institutions. Since March 2019 she is an evaluator for the European Commission for the SME Instrument and subsequently the EIC Accelerator programme. She is also the main inventor of an international industrial patent. Anastasia holds a BSc in Metallurgy from the University of Manchester, UK, an MSc in Materials Research and a PhD in Materials Engineering from Imperial College London, UK and an MBA (Entrepreneurship) from CIIM, Cyprus. In 2019 she participated in a three-week International Visitor Leadership (IVLP) Program by the U.S. Department of State entitled ‘Entrepreneurship as the Engine of Prosperity and Stability – Strategic Innovation’ in the US.