Experts

Ms Elisabet Vives
Lead of the EYCE Hub

Elisabet is a Project Manager and Researcher at LSE Consulting. She has over five years of experience in creating and coordinating multi-disciplinary teams, and in managing and contributing to projects for a wide variety of UK and EU clients, including the British Council, the Council of Europe, the European Commission and the Committee of the Regions, among other public bodies. Since 2019, she has developed a portfolio of projects in the areas of education and skills, youth and democratic civic engagement with a strong focus on monitoring and evaluation of education and youth programmes, and reviews of democratic governance frameworks.

Elisabet also actively contributes to research tasks. In the last three years, she has co-authored 9 reports on topics, including but not limited to e-voting practice in the EU; the Conference on the Future of Europe, which is the biggest ever participatory process held by the European Union to date; the higher education sector in Northern Ireland; and the state of youth and youth policy in various countries around the world. In her research, she employs qualitative and quantitative methods, and she is also trained and has employed participatory research methods, which are particularly important to hear the voices of vulnerable adults, young people and children.

Elisabet is a PhD candidate in Politics studying political inequalities and civic engagement at the University of Edinburgh. She holds an MSc in Philosophy and Public Policy from the LSE, as well as a BA in History (University of Barcelona) and a BA in Philosophy (Ramon Llull University). She is fluent in Catalan, English and Spanish and has a working capacity in French.

Dr Marina Cino Pagliarello
Senior Academic Advisor

Marina has joined the EYCE Hub as a Senior Academic Advisor and works as an Associate Lecturer at University College London. She holds a PhD in European Political Economy from the LSE European Institute, where she was Teaching Fellow in European Politics and Public Policy. In 2018-19, Marina was ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellowship (Industrial Strategy) at the LSE European Institute.

Prior to joining academia, she has worked as education policy researcher and specialist with national/international organisations and governments for over fifteen years, including the National Research Institute of the Italian Ministry of Labour as policy expert for comparative analysis of European education policies and the Italian Ministry of Education.

She also works as a Research Associate for LSE Consulting, where she contributes as a researcher and policy evaluator for several projects on education for a wide range of clients, including the European Commission, CEDEFOP, the European Training Foundation, and the UK Government.

Previous qualifications include an MRes in European Studies from the London School of Economics, an MSc in Economics of Arts and Culture from SDA Bocconi School of Management and an MA in History from the University of Pisa.

Dr Will Bartlett
Senior Academic Advisor

Will has joined the EYCE Hub as a Senior Academic Advisor and is an economist and Deputy Director of the Research Unit on Southeastern Europe (LSEE) at the European Institute, LSE. He was educated at the Universities of Cambridge (BA Economics), London (MSc Development Economics) and Liverpool (PhD: Unemployment and Migration in Former Yugoslavia). He is Editor-in-Chief of the peer-reviewed journal Economic Annals, published by the Faculty of Economics at the University of Belgrade.

His research has focused on the socio-economic development of the Western Balkans, publishing papers on education systems, labour markets, regional economic development, decentralisation and regional disparities, and barriers to SME development.

He has carried out multiple research and evaluation projects in the field of education policy including  evaluations of programmes to upgrade digital education in primary schools in the Western Balkans and in South Africa (British Council), a research project on the higher education systems with a focus on graduate employment (European Commission), a project on inclusive education  in secondary schools in the Western Balkans (Council of Europe), and a project on vocational education in the Western Balkans, Turkey and Israel (European Training Foundation). He has written and edited several articles on education policy Western Balkans in refereed academic journals.

Dr Max Fras
Senior Researcher

Max is a policy advisor and researcher specialising in civil society, education and youth policy. He has over fifteen years of professional experience in policy analysis, research, evaluation and strategic planning in international development and public policy.

Max holds a PhD in social sciences and has extensive experience in high-profile research and evaluation work, including research design, data collection and analysis, application of qualitative and quantitative methodologies, as well as policy work for international organisations. He is also an experienced event speaker, facilitator and trainer with ample experience in presenting to demanding, high-profile audiences.

Between 2009 and 2022, he worked for several policy, research and evaluation projects and programmes for international organisations including the European Union (youth and social policy, development education, employment), USAID (rule of law and judicial reform), GIZ (employment policy), UNDP (social policy), UNESCO (youth and intercultural dialogue), British Council (youth research, education, employment and skills, youth engagement), Council of Europe (democratisation, rule of law and human rights).

Max provided high-level policy advice and assistance in policy development to governments of Albania, Georgia, and Ukraine as well as to international organisations.

His geographical expertise covers Europe and its neighbourhood (notably East and South-East Europe and the South Caucasus), Eurasia, the Middle East and Africa. He speaks native Polish, fluent English and Russian and intermediate French and German.

Mr Matt Cresswell
Senior Researcher

Matt is a consultant with more than 25 years’ experience of designing, leading and evaluating projects and programmes in the schools, youth and higher education sectors for a range of public and private sector clients in the UK and globally.

An experienced researcher in fields as diverse as cultural relations and youth engagement, he has a background and deep interest in international collaboration, mobility and dialogue at all levels from learner to policy.