About

Gorka Espiau Idoiaga (PhD) is  the Director at the “Agirre Lehendakaria Center for Social and Political Studies”, a University of the Basque Country and Columbia University (AC4) collaborative research initiative to share the Basque case of socio-economic transformation under extreme difficulties internationally. Espiau is also a founding partner of Social Innovation Laboratory Koop (SILK) and Scientific Director of  Work4Progress initiative powered by La Caixa Foundation. Previously, he served as Senior Advisor to the Executive Office of the Basque President.

Gorka Espiau has also been Professor of Practice  at the Centre for Interdisciplinary Research on Montreal (CIRM-McGill University), Senior Fellow at the United States Institute of Peace and Senior Associate to CICR (Columbia University). He initiated his professional career in Elkarri, the Movement for Dialogue and Accord in the Basque Country. Espiau is an Editorial Board member of Stanford Social Innovation Review in Spanish and Revista 17, author of “Pluja Seca” (TV3 2011) and “Parlem les Lluls” (TV3 2012) documentaries and is co-author of many articles and publications on social change.”