Following his graduation in European studies (M.A.), Jakob Haardt built up his competences in the fields of risk management and assessment, scientific project coordination and proposal writing as a Research Associate at the Federal Highway Research Institute and EC Liaison Officer at the Technical University Berlin. After joining the Eurice team as Research & Innovation Manager in 2016, he set his personal focus on innovation development and exploitation strategies for life science projects in Horizon 2020 as well as strategic alignment and proposal management within the public-private Innovative Medicines Initiative (IMI). By developing and applying innovative tools and procedures, he has gained extensive knowledge in the field of collaborative innovation management and consultation which he has been applying in various initiatives including the IMI projects PERISCOPE and Hypo-RESOLVE and the EIT Health project CLOSE. Jakob is a strategic networker whose cross-linked approach serves to detect the exploitation potential of diverse research endeavours.