Irena PAVLOVA

Irena Pavlova is EU Projects Manager at GATE – Big Data Centre of Excellence at Sofia University. She leads the initiation, organization and implementation of GATE’s research projects under various EU and national programmеs. Irena is also Assistant Professor at Faculty of Mathematics and Informatics, Sofia University, specialized in software engineering and data interoperability. Research interests include Data Spaces, Data Management and enrichment, data interoperability.

Previously, Irena has been working for 20 years in industry, managing and conducting research and development in more than 30 industrial and EU funded projects.

Irena is also one of the initiators of the establishment of the Bulgaria Urban Data Space, as the city is a unique environment embracing economical aspects – utility and other industries, health and wellbeing of citizens, policy making at scale, but also innovators and entrepreneurs.

Currently, Irena is leading the VELES Horizon Europe project aiming at boosting the innovation excellence in Bulgaria, Cyprus, Greece and Romania through developing a Regional Smart Health Data Space.