Natasha Kapil

Natasha brings nearly two decades of global experience in firm competitiveness, research modernization, innovation and entrepreneurship ecosystem analytics and programming.

Natasha has supported national and regional governments, national agencies, and entrepreneurship ecosystem enablers, including in East Asia, Latin America, South Asia, and Africa. Based in Brussels, she serves as Competitiveness and Innovation Lead for the EU, focusing on Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania.

Currently, she leads the operationalization of the World Bank flagship “Europe 4.0: Addressing the Digital Dilemma”, the design of a flagship pilot program with DG REGIO on digitization and managerial practices upgrading for the EU recovery; implementation of DG REFORM initiative supporting “Romania’s Startup Ecosystem Strategy”.

She is deeply passionate about addressing climate change and leveraging her background to design mechanisms that stimulate private sector ingenuity to accelerate the green transition. Ms. Kapil will present an overview of the Public Expenditure Reviews on Science, Technology, and Innovation (PER STI). The PER methodology was developed by the World Bank, with support from the European Commission’s DG Employment. The modular PER tool was designed with the view to support EU countries at each step of the programming process, with special focus on issues of program design, implementation and governance.

The presentation will provide insights into the 4-phased instrument, including the policy and instrument mapping, functional analysis, efficiency, and effectiveness analysis. It will also include key highlights from recent and ongoing analytics in Bulgaria, Croatia, Poland, and Romania. An understanding of some of these broad trends can provide insights to all member states keen on strengthening the efficiency and effectiveness of innovation programming with the view to support a speedy recovery and bridge the global innovation divide.