Secretary-General LDnet
e-mail: haris.martinos@gmail.com
Haris Martinos is a local and regional development expert with experience in practically all EU Member States and many other countries, including Norway, Albania, Russia, Turkey, Croatia and Sri Lanka. He holds degrees in architecture and planning from the National Technical University Athens and Oxford Brooks University, and has carried out doctoral studies at the London School of Economics. He has carried out expert assignments on the development, management and evaluation of regional, rural, employment and cross-border development programmes.
Much of his work has been dedicated to local development, starting with hands-on experience in local government in the UK and consultancy on OECD’s LEED programme in the 1980s. He subsequently managed the LEDA (Local Employment Development Action) Programme, the UK LEADER+ Network, and the Contact Point of the European Network for Rural Development.
After a career in local government, including ten years as head of planning and economic development for the London Borough of Hammersmith & Fulham, he founded LRDP (Local and Regional Development Planning) in 1986 and carried out a large number of research and consultancy projects for the European Commission and other clients. LRDP became part of the KANTOR Group in 2003 and Haris was vice-president of KANTOR until 2010. He is now an independent expert, a member of the advisory committee of AEBR (Association of European Border Regions), an adviser to CPMR (European Conference of Peripheral Maritime Regions), and a founding member of LDnet.
Haris’s recent work includes identification and formulation missions for a new EU regional development programme in Sri Lanka, advice on local economic development in Bosnia and Herzegovina, a study on CBC opportunities in West Africa, a major evaluation of the response of ESF to the financial and economic crisis, the assessment of the impact of EU accession on the Croatian SMEs, mid-term evaluation of the RDP Northern Albania, a database on best practices in CBC, ex-ante evaluation of ADRION Programme, ex-post evaluation of urban development in ERDF, synthesis of ex-post evaluations of ESF (2007-2013), advisory work on EURES cross-border partnerships, and case studies on easing border obstacles in Ie-UK and BG-EL. He has recently carried out two expert assignments for the European Committee of the Regions on the role of LRAs in the European Semester and on obstacles to investment at local and regional level.
He is based in London and Brussels and on the Aegean island of Paros.