Maria-Luisa Marsal Llacuna is an Architect (2001) with two Masters (2004, 2011) and two Doctorates (2008, 2013) in the fields of urban planning and applied ICT. Currently, she is an independent consultant on the so called ‘twin transition’, helping governments and the private sector to transition to green and digital models.

Previously she worked in the private sector as Technology and Standards lead at Centre Blockchain de Catalunya, Cambra de Comerç de Barcelona. Previously, she worked for governments in the UK and in Catalunya as smart cities and technology consultant, for Innovate UK and at Government’s of Catalonia Catalan Institute of Energy.

Before working for public administrations, she spent fifteen years in the academia, in different research and leadership roles in public universities. Her academic career includes the creation and direction of world’s first official scientific master’s program in smart cities; several competitive and commercial research projects in the domains of smart and sustainable cities; postdoc scholarships in Germany (2006) and the USA (2011); a US patent on urban planning standards technology; and, the publication as main author of about twenty papers in top peer-reviewed academic journals.

She served as UN Habitat III expert and she held two mandates as a chair at UN’s U4SSC initiative, with her second term focused on exploring blockchain applications for cities. She has been involved in standardisation activities since 2010, participating in different committees in UNE, CEN-Cenelec, ISO, IEC and ITU. She is and has served as reviewer and rapporteur in competitive EU calls within the FP7, H2020 and Horizon Europe programmes. She is accredited as EU research programmes assessor by ACCIÓ, Catalonia’s Innovation Agency.