Deputy Head of the Unit “Low Emission Future Industries”, Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, European Commission
Andrea Gentili is currently the Deputy Head of the Unit “Low Emission Future Industries” in the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation of the European Commission. The unit is in charge of the European research and innovation activities for aviation, waterborne and coal&steel sectors. He is also the Clean Planet Partnerships Manager with the task of ensuring coordination of the 12 Horizon Europe partnerships currently running in the Clean Planet Directorate in DG R&I in the areas of energy and transport, including the Clean Steel.
From 2016 to 2019, he acted as Deputy Head of the Unit “Aviation” in charge of the Clean Sky European research public-private partnership. From 2011 to 2016, he acted as Deputy Head of the Unit “Advanced Manufacturing Systems and Biotechnologies” and he has been strongly involved in the setting up of the contractual Public-Private Partnerships within Horizon 2020.
In 2009 he was appointed responsible for the Commission for the implementation of the “Factories of the Future” and “Energy-efficient buildings” Public-Private contractual Partnerships. In 2004 he was in charge of the setting-up and running of the Manufuture European Technology Platform, and he was responsible in RTD for several innovative advanced manufacturing areas such as automation, photonics, micro-nano manufacturing and additive technologies.
Before joining the European Commission in 2001, he had several different experiences in the private and public sectors. He started his career in an Italian SME producing industrial refrigerators where he was production manager, and then he joined the Ecole de Mines d’Albi in France as researcher. In the late 90’s, he came back to industry and joined, as technical director, an American software and engineering company. Finally, in 1998, he became associate of a French SME and run his own business in the area of mechanical engineering services (e.g. static and dynamic/acoustic analysis, crash and multibody systems simulations, topology and parametric optimisations), mainly for the automotive and aerospace sectors.
Andrea has a degree in Mechanical Engineering from the University of Pisa in Italy.
Andrea is happily married and is the proud father of three children. In his leisure time, he practises biking and plays regularly tennis and squash. He is also a free-diving instructor.