
Opinion
CITIES
Smart Urban Planning for a Climate-Neutral Europe

Luz Esparza
Senior Consultant
Luz Esparza has been working at Zabala Innovation since 2010, at the Mutilva (Pamplona) headquarters, where she currently holds the position of Senior Consultant in EU projects and Reference Manager.
She holds a degree in Telecommunications Engineering and has over 15 years of hands-on experience in managing R&D and Innovation projects across various EU-funded programmes such as FP7, Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe, LIFE, EUROSTARS, and Interreg. Her expertise lies in coordinating EU project proposal submissions, management, and general innovation consulting across multiple administrative levels, from regional to national and European contexts.
Within Zabala Innovation, she meticulously studies the specific features of topics and calls for proposals, actively participates in information sessions, and communicates programme details both internally and to clients. Her clients range from large corporations to small enterprises, technology centers, public entities, and national as well as international universities.
Over the years, she has been responsible for implementing numerous EU projects, such as LT-Observatory (H2020, No 644583), EDI (H2020, No 779790), and REACH (H2020, No 951981), as well as funding Up2Date (Horizon 2020, No 871465) in the digital sector. She has also worked on LIFE IP NADAPTA (Regional Climate Change Platform, LIFE16 IPC/ES/000001), the TIMON project (H2020, No 636220) in the multimodal mobility area, and FRAMES (No 886549) in clean aviation, among many others. Additionally, she has contributed her expertise to public administration studies, notably for the Bilbao Council, and has played a key role in tender preparations.