From Societal Impact Strategy to Implementation and Execution

Antonia Caro Gonzalez, Head of the International Research Project Office, is experienced in managing complex interdisciplinary research collaborations and community engagement with multi-stakeholder counterparts (academic, government, private sector and civil society). Over 20 years of experience in research internationalisation backs her as senior counsellor for the Rector team in research strategic planning. 

At present, she is responsible for the Internationalisation, Social Impact and Interdisciplinary Platforms plans aligned with the Deusto 2022 Strategic Plan. Among her main tasks, she closely monitors the key EU initiatives keeping contacts with relevant players at international level developing the research interdisciplinary platforms strategy and intersectoral collaborations.

She has participated in over 100 EU-funded proposals since 1999 and has personally led and/or actively contributed to the elaboration and implementation of several of them. 

Elected member of the Board of Directors for the Covenant on Demographic Change, of the Board of Directors of the European School of Social Innovation, and member of  the GaragErasmus Ethics, Disciplinary and Private Relations Committee. She has recently been appointed full member of the Managing Committee of the Cost Action “International Interdisciplinary Network on Smart Healthy Age-friendly Environments” (NET4AGE-FRIENDLY).

She is the ideator and leader of the development and implementation of the 6i model (Caro-Gonzalez, 2019, 2020), a flexible multi-layered, purpose-driven institutional intervention process. Its main aim is to strategically integrate six dimensions that traditionally suffer from a piecemeal approach: (1) internationalisation, (2) interdisciplinarity, (3) intersectorality, (4) impact, (5) innovation, and (6) inclusion. The strategy developed during the last twelve years, aligned with the RIS3 strategy of the Basque Country and with the Europe 2020 and Global Challenges vehicle the collaborative endeavours between disciplines and with over 1200 stakeholders outside the academia, working on real projects and showing a great impact of research actions.