ANA-ELISABETA
DRĂGUȚESCU
Ad-Hoc Expert
Generic Skills
B.1. Understanding of integrated and sustainable urban development:
My educational background is based in urban planning and design and transport planning studies. I graduated the University of Architecture and Urban Planning in Bucharest and the Master of Planning and Design of Urban Environment, at the Engineering Faculty of the University of Porto, Portugal with the thesis: A Different Perspective of Planning: Transit-Oriented Development. These studies covered extensive topics of urban and transport planning: Design and Representation in Urban Planning; Urban Morphology; Urban Composition; Territorial Planning Interventions; Urban forms and structures; Mobility and transport planning.
The European Projects offered me the opportunity to become a SUMP expert, staff trainer and facilitator of the SUMP process development, having developed training courses for municipalities and SUMPs for several Romanian cities. I am also an ADVANCE Auditor and trainer, providing guidance to the cities’ mobility planning towards an ideal SUMP. I was also a member of the Advisory Group on the topic of Specific needs for urban mobility in small/medium sized cities, established within the CIVITAS CAPITAL project and an external expert in the TRANSFORuM workshops focused on collecting information of good practices and examples of strategies to overcome the barriers for achieving the goal of the 2011 Transport White Paper. I am a Member of the International Programme Committee for the ECOMM Conference and an Ambasador and Evaluator for Walk21 Conference.
B.2. Understanding of exchange and learning processes at transnational level:
As part of European Projects that widely covered most of the European territory with Consortiums that brought experience and innovation in equal measure to the tasks of learning and promoting sustainable mobility across the EU and beyond, I had the opportunity to develop my capacities of process and project management, elaboration of scientific documentation, translations, marketing and communication about sustainable transport modes, organisation of awareness raising events, training activities on sustainable urban mobility, monitoring and evaluation activities. I worked within Consortiums with no less than 12 European partners, leaders in the field of SUMPs, with experts in different areas of sustainable mobility and with some of the EU’s most skilled promoters and disseminators that provided me with the expertise and a progressive experience in the sustainable mobility field.
My work involves frequent contact with important European networks like CIVITAS, Managenergy, Federene, Polis, EUROCITIES, UBC, EPOMM, Walk21, Cities for Mobility and Velocity with a side geographical and linguistic spread.
I co-ordinated 4 international projects: ADVANCE (http://eu-advance.eu), TRANSPORT LEARNING (www.transportlearning.net), CH4LLENGE (http://www.sump-challenges.eu) and PUSH&PULL (http://www.push-pull-parking.eu), providing SUMP knowledge and process design, barriers overcome methods, audit schemes, parking management. All projects involved a high number of cities across Europe.
B.3. Proficiency in English:
With an extensive record of working within European Consortiums, I have developed very good English speaking and writing communication and interaction capacities. As part of the team or coordinator of different European co-funded projects like: ACTIVE TRAVEL NETWORK (http://urbact.eu/sites/default/files/import/Projects/Active_Travel_Network/documents_media/LAP_Sebes_ro_01.pdf), ACTIVE ACCESS (http://www.active-access.eu); Eltis (http://www.eltis.org); ADVANCE (http://eu-advance.eu), TRANSPORT LEARNING (www.transportlearning.net), CH4LLENGE (http://www.sump-challenges.eu),PUSH&PULL (http://www.push-pull-parking.eu), I was required to deliver and submit different documents that used English language exclusively.
These years were invaluable in enabling me to perfect my English speaking and writing as I attended numerous Project Consortium Meetings involving all partners and using English as a communication language.
As an evaluator for different relevant conferences like ECOMM and Walk21, or as an expert member of an Advisory Group on the topic of Specific need for urban mobility in small/medium sized cities, established within the European project CIVITAS CAPITAL, I am constantly using my English skills to perform these jobs.
Therefore, due to constant and continuous use of English language since 2006 as a working language, my English speaking and writing skills are fluent.
Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:
Summary Expertise for the design and delivery of transnational exchange and learning activities:
Ana Drăguțescu has been working as part of the Mobility Department within ATU starting 2010, implementing European co-funded projects as researcher, trainer, facilitator and project coordinator in the field of sustainable mobility and liveable public space. By coordinating different projects, she developed high level process and project management skills, ability to design, organise and deliver various activities, within effective working relationships, to transfer solutions and tools always adapted to the various levels of knowledge and learning capacity. As a training and various Consortium Meetings host, Ana was in charge of organising and facilitating events, workshops and different debates. The European network she worked with provided her with the opportunity of continuously active learning from other partners’ experience all around Europe.
By developing an extensive network of Romanian cities where capacity and skills were built within public administrations and private market actors on the topics of sustainable transport and mobility management, she represented a catalyst that worked with an interdisciplinary approach, to handle different cultural contexts, using interactive and empowering elements to create a motivating professional environment that enables know-how exchange and development.
Thematic expertise:
Theme / Policy:
Sustainable Urban Mobility
Summary Thematic expertise:
Ana Drăguțescu offers 6 years of experience as a Sustainable Urban Mobility Planning expert, covering topics like SUMP development process, urban walking and cycling strategies, institutional cooperation in SUM planning, implementation of accessibility measures for disabled people, parking management strategies-guidelines for Romanian cities, SUMP measure selection and prioritisation, organisation of awareness raising events, mobility campaigns and training activities on sustainable urban mobility.
Within these last years she developed high skills and competences in coordinating European funded projects, providing technical and financial implementation solutions, but also in working with Romanian Public Administrations on their constant need for support in implementing sustainable transport measures. She has all the necessary skills to incorporate learning and know-how, to collect and produce good practice examples and policy messages for key stakeholders and other professionals, to support key stakeholders involvement in forum and consultation activities in shaping the future Romanian and European transport system.
She is competent in producing reports, handbook and guidelines to be used by different actors involved in the know-how exchange on sustainable urban transport.
Expertise support to local authorities and other stakeholders in designing & delivering integrated and participatory policies
E.1. Knowledge on participatory methods and tools for co-production and implementation of local polices :
SUMP as a strategic plan considers the engagement of citizens and stakeholders throughout its development process as one key elements. As part of two different SUMP development processes, I gained broad experience on participatory methods.
On behalf of the Consultant, together with the municipality Counterpart Team a public consultation plan as set up that helped discussing the Plan with the experts in the field as well as with the civil society (Government/ authorities: neighbouring cities, traffic police, emergency services, project managers, professional staff; business associations, major employers, retailers, utility services, PT operators, local community organisations and interest groups, cycle/ walking groups, citizens, universities).
Some of the main tasks foreseen for this process were to:
- participate at working group meetings and prepare necessary supporting documents;
- evaluate the comments and inputs from the working group participants and include these into the final Sustainable Urban Mobility Plan if the case;
- assist the beneficiary during the public debate and prepare necessary supporting documents for the public debate, evaluate comments for the public and provide related input to the SUMP.
- develop a Marketing and Communication plan;
- inform the media.
E.2. Knowledge on integrated approach for the design, delivering, monitoring and evaluation of urban strategies/policies:
All European projects that I was involved in had a very important Monitoring and Evaluation component that measured the impact of the action during the project lifetime and estimated the probable future impact according to the specific and strategic objectives of the project.
ACTIVE ACCESS - Evaluation was carried out using the base line as described in the Implementation Report. The cities and the support partners were responsible for local data gathering and monitoring progress and also for interpretation of data. The tasks in which I was involved were:
- preparation of the Evaluation plan for the Romanian cities - a methodological reference document
- monitoring and evaluation activities: data collection and monitoring according to the planning and methods described in the plan
- development of the Evaluation Report.
ADVANCE - the aim of the Monitoring & Evaluation WP was to ensure the quality and usefulness of the outputs of the project, to draw lessons and formulate recommendations for increasing the quality of SUMPs.
The tasks I was involved in were:
- to peer review project deliverables based on common guidelines and a set of questions to be answered by the reviewer
- to assess the ADVANCE audit scheme and identify changes in local policy before and after the Audit scheme, using the checklist for the auditor
- to produce a short local evaluation plan together with the test city that set out the exact timing of the evaluation activities.
E.3. Awareness of the main policy and funding schemes for sustainable urban development at EU and national level:
European funding programmes encourage different countries and regions to work together, sharing experiences and learning to find joint solutions to common problems.
Due to a very extensive network of European partners developed within the 6 years of involvement in European funded projects, I managed to build effective partnerships for project involvement and delivery or find existing projects to participate in by using the contacts and networks across the EU.
Eltis facilitates the exchange of information, knowledge and experiences in the field of sustainable urban mobility in Europe. The Eltis portal is a very important tool to be up-to-date with the latest information on best practice, similar policies other cities implemented and also different events, conferences organised across Europe or somewhere else. Under three key themes – DISCOVER, RESOURCES, PARTICIPATE – Eltis provides the information, good practices, tools and communication channels needed to help you turn your cities into models of sustainable urban mobility. The dedicated MOBILITY PLANS section offers a hub of information on how to develop and implement Sustainable Urban Mobility Plans (SUMPs) as the need for more sustainable and integrated planning processes in Europe grows.
There is also a dedicated page to EU funding that brings together the current EU funding streams and programmes that are accessible at the moment.
E.4. Ability to understand specific local situations and adapt tools and content to different local realities:
TRANSPORT LEARNING was designed to support practitioners to develop better solutions for urban transport systems in order to improve citizens' mobility. To reach this goal, several training on-the-job aimed at local authorities and energy agencies activities took place in the framework of the project. Within the training, high value was placed on active learning sessions consisting of role-plays, group discussions and other interactive exercises. All events were performed by international mobility experts, accompanied by the local host. As a national training host, I took a major role and helped the trainers to develop the training components, discuss the content, choose the practical examples, in order to develop tailor-made trainings designed for the requirements and requests of the Romanian background.
I also represented a catalyst to encourage trainees to deliver actual projects in the fields of sustainable mobility after the trainings. The training was facilitated by the international mobility expert accompanied by the national host. This team ensured high quality training content while passing on country-specific information like legal frameworks, cultural habits and governing practices. The availablility of country specific case-studies as well as international good-practice examples were highly appreciated by the trainees. To overcome language barriers, the training was translated to the host's national language, using consecutive and simultaneous translation.
Summary Expertise:
With a professional history in implementing sustainable mobility projects, Ana Drăguțescu developed and worked with an entire network of Romanian cities that successfully implemented mobility measures and technical solutions. As part of two different SUMP development processes, she gained broad experience on participatory methods and different tools for co-production and implementation of local polices.
All projects should have a very important Monitoring and Evaluation component that measured the impact of the action during the project lifetime and estimated the probable future impact. Ana Drăguțescu developed an important expertise in designing and delivering Monitoring and Evaluation processes which can be applied as management tools both for individual measures and packages of measures and for the overall SUMP planning process. Continuous data collection and analysis, systematic determination of measure’s merit and significance during and after implementation were important tools that she worked with to determine the potential successes and the need for readjustment of a SUMP and its instruments.
Due to a very extensive network of European partners developed within the last 6 years of involvement in European funded projects, she managed to build effective partnerships for future project involvement and delivery, or she managed to find existing calls for projects to participate in, by using these contacts and networks across the EU.
Informations
Residence location:
Romania
Languages:
Romanian - Mother tongue
Foreign Languages level:
Foreign languages:
Foreign Languages level:
Foreign languages:
Foreign Languages level:
Foreign languages:
Email:
ana.dragutescu@yahoo.com