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BOARD

Our Next Monthly Call

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Dr. Bernadett Petri, Managing Director at the Hungarian Development Promotion Office (MFOI)

Dr. Bernadett Petri is a Hungarian lawyer, EU policy expert, and public administrator with two decades of experience at the intersection of European law, regional development, and innovation policy. She has served Ministerial Commissioner at Hungary's Ministry of Public Administration and Regional Development and is currently the Managing Director of the Hungarian Development Promotion Office (MFOI), where she leads efforts to connect Hungarian institutions and project developers with EU-funded programmes in digital policy, competitiveness, industrial transformation, and regional innovation. She also serves as Hungary's National Contact Point Coordinator for the Digital Europe Programme.

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Dr. Petri spent nearly a decade in Brussels, holding advisory and policy roles at the European Parliament and within the Cabinet of the Commissioner for Education, Culture, Youth and Sport at the European Commission. This experience gave her deep fluency in EU legislative processes, structural funds, and the practical mechanics of translating EU-level ambition into national and regional outcomes — the very challenge at the heart of her current work. She is also an active researcher and Director of the Europe Strategy Research Institute at Ludovika University of Public Service, where her academic work focuses on the relationship between EU regional policy and innovation development.

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Trained as a lawyer at Pázmány Péter Catholic University and holding advanced degrees from the University of Cambridge, Budapest Corvinus University, and Quadriga University — as well as a Bachelor's in Psychology with a focus on intercultural relations — Dr. Petri brings an unusually multidisciplinary perspective to questions of European competitiveness and cohesion. She is fluent in English, French, and German, and regularly publishes and speaks on EU structural policy, regional innovation ecosystems, and the future of EU funding frameworks.

Beyond the Innovation Gap: How Europe Can Turn Funding into Industrial and Regional Competitiveness

Europe invests heavily in knowledge, funds ambitious programmes, and sets bold policy targets. Yet it continues to struggle to translate this foundation into globally competitive industries and scaled technologies. This session examines why — and what it will take to close the gap.

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In this session, Dr. Bernadett Petri will explore:

  • Why innovation spending and innovation execution are not the same thing — and what the gap between them costs Europe

  • The challenge of scaling European technologies and companies in strategic sectors, including AI, clean technologies, advanced manufacturing, digital infrastructure, and dual-use innovation

  • The case for place-based industrial policy and the urgent need to extend innovation capacity beyond Europe's traditional core regions

  • The emerging role of Central and Eastern Europe as an industrial and innovation base, with particular strengths in advanced manufacturing, energy-intensive technologies, data infrastructure, and cross-border cooperation

  • Hungary's national innovation priorities and how they align with — and can contribute to — the broader European competitiveness agenda

  • How the next EU budget and EU programmes must connect competitiveness and cohesion more effectively, rather than treating them as competing objectives

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