The EMANES Coordination Unit (CU) is composed of the Director, the Assistant Director, the Academy Coordinator and the Communications Officer. The EMANES CU is responsible for ensuring that the objectives of the annual scientific program are achieved, including research, academy activities and dissemination, and that EMANES rules and procedures are respected and enforced. The EMANES CU produces an annual report on the scientific and financial progress to present to the Steering Committee.
Rym Ayadi
EMANES Director
Professor Rym Ayadi is Founder and Director of the EU-Mediterranean and African Network for Economic Studies (EMANES, formerly EMNES), Founder and President of the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), Professor at the Bayes Business School, City University of London, and Member of the Centre for Banking Research (CBR). She is also Senior Research Advisor at the Euro-Mediterranean University (EMUNI) in Piran, Slovenia.
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Cinzia Alcidi
EMANES Academy Coordinator
Dr. Cinzia Alcidi is Director of Research at the Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS) in Brussels, and Research Fellow at the LUISS School of European Political Economy.
Prior to joining CEPS, she worked at the International Labour Office in Geneva and she taught International Economics at University of Perugia (Italy). Her research activity includes international economics, macroeconomics, central banking and EU governance.
Read MoreShe holds a Ph.D. degree in International Economics from the Graduate Institute of International and Development Studies, Geneva (Switzerland).
Sandra Challita
EMANES Coordinator
Dr. Sandra Challita is an Associate Professor in Finance at Emlyon Business School, a research fellow at the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA) and the coordinator of the Euro-Mediterranean and African Network for Economic Studies (EMANES). She received her Ph.D. in Finance at the University of Montpellier. Her research focuses on financial institutions, more specifically different types of banks, their performance and impact on the real economy. She also collaborates on projects aiming to support job creation and development in the Euro-Mediterranean area.
George Christopoulos
Communications Officer
George Christopoulos specialises in intelligence & communications strategy. He has over 20 years of experience as a geostrategic intelligence analyst, and communications & marketing manager, in various companies and organizations. He currently serves as Intelligence & Communication Officer at the Euro-Mediterranean Economists Association (EMEA), a Barcelona based regional think tank, supported by 35 Universities & Research Institutions from 17 countries. He is responsible for intelligence and reporting of important socio-economic developments, dissemination of deliverables and social media communication.
He also holds the position of Marketing Director of Apogee Information Systems, an IT company specializing in e-learning, web applications and content management systems.
Read MoreGeorge also serves as a member at the Board of Directors of the Italian-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce of Athens, elected for the period 2022 – 2026. The Italian-Hellenic Chamber of Commerce of Athens is the 2nd largest bilateral Chamber of Commerce in Greece.
On February 2022 George received the Gold Cross of Sabbas the Sanctified, of the Greek Orthodox Patriarchate of Alexandria and All Africa.
Previous to that, George worked as a senior consultant in geostrategic intelligence, communication, and crisis management. He was responsible for threat-monitoring, corporate intelligence, competition monitoring, political trends and actors monitor, general communications and positioning strategy for large corporations and organizations. He has participated to EU IT projects such as the Icarus AI enhanced e-learning, the OpenTEA e-learning platform, the European Observatory for Sustainable Agriculture – OPERA and WP7 NOMAD – Policy Formulation and Validation through non-moderated crowdsourcing. He has also worked in the energy sector, specializing in business intelligence and marketing of renewable energy projects, and as Marketing Manager in the IT sector, specializing in Document and Knowledge Management. George studied Business Administration – Marketing at the University of Bath.
