Mafini Sarratou Dosso, PhD, PMP, has served for 9 years as the Economist and Policy Analyst and is now the leader of the project ‘Smart Specialisation Strategies with Africa’ at the European Commission Joint Research Centre (EU JRC) in Seville, Spain. She has extensive experience in producing scientific evidence for innovation policy and in supporting Sub-Saharan African countries to develop and strengthen their innovation policies and systems for sustainable transformations. A fluent speaker of French, English and Spanish, she has over 14 years professional experience on research and innovation policies and analyzing innovation systems and technological and industrial dynamics at micro and macro-economic levels. In 2021, she co-founded OIITID, an accredited non-for-profit organisation in Abidjan to foster local research capabilities on innovation and technology trends. Prior to joining the EU JRC, she was a University lecturer and also a consultant and policy research analyst for various projects including for the Organization for Economic Cooperation and Development (OECD) where she contributed to the drafting of the sections for Innovation Policy Platform Initiative, a joint OECD & World Bank project to support innovation policy making.