Elena López Gunn

Elena López Gunn is a Non-resident Senior Fellow at the Elcano Royal Institute and founding director of ICATALIST, a Spanish start up specialising in sustainability and adaptation solutions to climate change. She is also a member of the Elcano Royal Institute’s Scientific Council.

She is also lead author on the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) Working Group II (WGII) and a member of the European Scientific Advisory Board on climate change. She forms part of the United Nations Education, Science and Cultural Organisation (UNESCO) working group on the future of water, which focuses on fostering interrelationships between science and politics to accelerate implementation of Sustainable Development Goal 6 (SDG6).

She has been an associate professor at IE Business School, a visiting fellow at water@leeds and a senior visiting fellow at the London School of Economics (LSE), where she also worked as an Alcoa research fellow, focusing her work on water governance policies and on collective action for achieving sustainable management of this natural resource.

She has formed part of the Botín Foundation’s Water Observatory and has collaborated with a range of organisations, including UNESCO, the UN Food and Agriculture Organisation (FAO), the United Nations Development Programme (UNDP) and the European Union’s Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (DG RTD). She has also worked with universities and regional governments, with the private sector and various NGOs, such as Transparency International and the Nature Conservancy, leading research teams and transferring valuable knowledge about water governance and adaptation to climate change.

She has written numerous academic articles and reports, and has edited various books, mainly related to water management and climate change.

She completed her PhD at King’s College, London, has a Master’s from the University of Cambridge and a Master’s in Investigative Journalism from King Juan Carlos University in Madrid.