Chair of EuroMeSCo General Assembly and Executive President of European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed)

Senén Florensa Palau

Senén Florensa (Valls, 1950) is the President of the Delegate Committee and the Director General of the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) with the range of Executive President, Chair of EuroMeSCo General Assembly, and director of the quarterly afkar/ideas and of the IEMed Mediterranean Yearbook.

A diplomat, he holds a degree in Economic Science (1971) and in Law (1972) from the Universitat de Barcelona. He studied for his doctorate in Economics at the Université Paris I Panthéon-Sorbonne (1973-1974); as a Fullbright scholarship holder at New York University , Ph. D. Program (1974-1976), and at the Universidad Complutense de Madrid, where he presented his doctoral thesis in 1979. Diploma in International Studies from the Diplomatic School of the Spanish Ministry of Foreign Affairs and Cooperation.

HEAD OF EURO-MEDIRERRANEAN POLICIES DEPARTMENT

Rim Filali Meknassi

Rim joined the IEMed in January 2025 as Head of the Euro-Mediterranean Policies department.

Since 2017, she has served as member in the Cabinet of the Secretary General of the Union for the Mediterranean, first as a speechwriter and policy analyst, and then as an advisor on strategy, programming, and engagement.

Prior to that, Ms. Filali Meknassi worked as junior economist at the Mediterranean department of the Agence Française de Développement (AFD), programme officer at the Syria desk of EuroMed Rights, and project assistant both at the North-South Center of the Council of Europe and the Mediterranean Office for Youth.
She has been accompanying several organisations and NGOs across the region in project design and fundraising, specifically for EU funding opportunities.

Born in Tangier, she holds a bachelor’s degree in Euro-Mediterranean studies and a dual master’s degree in International Development and Public Policy from Sciences Po Paris and Bocconi University. Since 2022, Ms. Filali Meknassi is also an associate professor and academic advisor at Sciences Po’s Mediterranean and Middle Eastern programme.

PROGRAMME MANAGER

Jenny Gilbert

Jenny Gilbert joined the European Institute of the Mediterranean (IEMed) in Barcelona in May 2021 as the Programme Manager in charge of coordinating and managing the activities of the EuroMeSCo network.

From 2018 to 2021 she worked as a Project Analyst in the Social and Civil Affairs Division of the Union for the Mediterranean (UfM), supporting the Euro-Mediterranean policy dialogue processes on Women Empowerment, Youth and Civil Protection. From 2015 to 2017 she worked as a Grant Administrator for EU projects at the European University Continuing Education Network (eucen), and between 2012 and 2015 she was the Project Manager of the SGroup – Universities in Europe network, based in Brussels.

She holds a bachelor’s degree in Journalism from the Rovira i Virgili University (URV), a master’s degree in International Relations, Development and Security from the Autonomous University of Barcelona (UAB) and an international diploma in Euro-Mediterranean Policies, specialising in diaspora movements and gender.

PROGRAMME OFFICER

Ana López

Ana is the Programme Officer in the Euro-Mediterranean Policies Department. She is responsible for the organisation of multi-stakeholder research and dialogue events and the production of outputs related to those events, and manages databases of policy-makers and experts.

From 2020 to 2024 she was EuroMeSCo’s Dialogue and Events Officer, as part of the project “EuroMeSCo: Connecting the Dots”, co-funded by the EU and the IEMed. .

Before joining IEMed, she worked as a Programme Officer at the Instituto de Investigaciones y Estudios Superiores de Granada, at the Spanish Embassy in Beirut, and as the Assistant to the Middle East Correspondent at La Vanguardia. She also worked as a Spanish Instructor at the German International School Beirut, and has experience translating journalistic and academic documents from Arabic into Spanish.

Ana holds a bachelor´s degree in Arab and Islamic Studies from the Autonomous University of Madrid, with a semester placement at the Saint Joseph University of Beirut (Lebanon), and a postgraduate degree in Arabic Language and Literature from the Institut Français du Proche-Orient, Beirut.