Elena López Gunn is a Senior Research 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 an expert in water governance, water security, climate change adaptation, social-ecological systems, social innovation, collaborative decision making and public policy evaluation. 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 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 worked at 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 holds a PhD in Geography from King’s College London, an MSc in Environment and Development from the University of Cambridge and an MA in Investigative Journalism, Data Management and Visualisation from the Universidad Rey Juan Carlos I with the newspaper El Mundo. She holds degrees in European Politics, Economics and Law from Cardiff University.