Group members

Kostas Tsekouras

Prof. Kostas Tsekouras
Economist
SPILEF Principal Investigator,
Professor, Department of Economics, University of Patras
W: https://sites.google.com/site/kostastsekourasen

Kostas Tsekouras is a Professor of Industrial Economics in the Department of Economics of the University of Patras, GR. His research interests focus on efficiency and productivity analysis especially in a technology heterogeneity context, economics of innovation, economics of Energy efficiency Technologies and industrial dynamics. His research works have appeared in international peer reviewed journals, among others European Journal of Operational Research, Research Policy, Energy Economics, Journal of Banking and Finance,  Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Small Business Economics, Industrial and Corporate Change, Regional Science and Journal of Productivity Analysis. Also, he has participated as a researcher or as a PI, in National and European research projects. At the same time he acts as a reviewer for several journals and as an evaluator of research proposals at National and European level. In addition, he has joined a team of experts under the JRC umbrella, which aims at developing the long run strategy for the global competitiveness of European Manufacturing Industries. In the same context it is his pleasure to contribute in World Bank’s projects. Finally, it was his honour and pleasure to serve as Head of the Department of Economics, member of the Senate of the University of Patras, and President and CEO of Patras Science Park.

Nikos Chatzistamoulou

Dr. Nikos Chatzistamoulou
Economist
SPILEF Researcher,
W: https://sites.google.com/site/chatzistamoulou/

Dr. Nikos Chatzistamoulou is an empirical economist. His research field is Applied Microeconometrics and his research interests entail the fields of Empirical Industrial Organization, Efficiency and Productivity Analysis, Business Economics, Environmental & Energy Economics and Economics of Sustainable Development. He holds a four-year BSc in Economics from the University of Patras, Greece, MSc in Economics from the Athens University of Economics and Business and PhD in Economics from the University of Patras. His research experience includes research positions at the Athens University of Economics and Business Greece, the University of Surrey United Kingdom and the University of Patras Greece. He has teaching experience both at the undergraduate and post-graduate level. He has co-authored two books in Applied Operations Research using R, while his research has been published to international peer-reviewed journals (Energy Economics, Water Journal, International Journal of Production Economics, Technological Forecasting & Social, Environmental Economics& Policy Studies). His research has attracted both national and European funding.

Victoria Daskallou

Dr. Victoria Daskalou
Computer & Informatics Scientist,
SPILEF Researcher,
Specialized Teaching Staff, Department of Economics, University of Patras
W: https://blogs.upatras.gr/daskalou/

Dr. Victoria Daskalou is a computer and informatics scientist, holding a bachelor’s degree (1992) and a Ph.D. degree (1998) in Informatics from the Department of Informatics of the Athens University of Economics and Business (AUEB), Greece. Dr. Daskalou joined the Department of Economics of University of Patras (UPatras) in 2014 as a specialized teaching staff in Internet information systems. Her current research interests are in the areas of digital entrepreneurship and entrepreneurial education. Dr. Daskalou has previously worked (2008-2014) as the designer and the technical coordinator for the implementation of large-scale academic management information systems at the Directorate of Information and Communication Systems in UPatras. From 2001 to 2008 she was the head of the R&D team and the responsible of web and e-learning services at the Network Operations Center of UPATRAS. For the period from 1995 up to 2001 she was a senior researcher at the Computer and Communications Systems Laboratory of the Department of Informatics and at the Network Operations Center of AUEB.  Dr. Daskalou participated in more than 20 R&D European and national projects and has published 14 papers in international journals and conference proceedings. She was a member in several scientific committees related to the digital transformation of Upatras and Greek Universities.

Andriana Dimakopoulou

Dr. Andriana Dimakopoulou
SPILEF Researcher

Dr. Andriana Dimakopoulou holds a PhD from the Department of Management Science and Technology in Athens University of Economics and Business in Greece, a MSc in Management Science and Information Systems (with distinction) from Warwick Business School in Warwick University in United Kingdom and a BSc in Business Administration (with distinction) from University of Piraeus, Greece. She has received various academic awards and scholarships from the ‘State Scholarships Foundation (ΙKY)’, the ‘Public Welfare Foundation Propondis’ and the ‘Alexander S. Onassis Public Foundation’ under the support of her undergraduate and postgraduate studies due to academic excellence. She has been a PhD and post-doctoral researcher in ELTRUN the E-Business Research Center in Athens University of Economics and Business under ten (10) Research National and European projects. Her research interests lie in the areas of innovation, digital innovation and entrepreneurship, e-business, information systems management and investment evaluation of innovative information technology projects. Her work has been published in peer reviewed academic journals, conferences, and books including International Journal of Production Economics, International Conference on Real Options, Mediterranean Conference on Information Systems, Unique Radio Innovation for the 21st Century-Springer publishing.  She has a postdoctoral academic teaching experience as a part-time Lecturer under Scholarships in several universities such as University of Patras, Athens University of Economics and Business, University of West Attica and School of Pedagogical and Technological Education. She has also worked for seven consecutive years in the past as a data collector and analyst in the National Documentation Center in the Hellenic National Research Foundation in the Research, Development and Innovation (RDI) Metrics department and as an Information Systems Auditor in the company ‘Whitefriars Housing Group’ in Coventry-United Kingdom.

Areti Gkypali

Dr. Areti Gkypali
Economist,
SPILEF Researcher,
Assistant Professor, Dept. of Marketing and Communications,
Athens University of Economics and Business

Dr. Areti Gkypali is an economist, holding a BSc (2007) and a PhD (2014) in Economics from the Department of Economics, University of Patras. She also holds a MSc (2008) in Industry and Innovation Analysis from SPRU, University of Sussex. Areti’s research interests revolve around economics and management of innovation, entrepreneurship and international business. She is particularly interested in the investigation of relationships between innovation, efficiency and productivity, growth and export strategies of SMEs. Areti worked at the Department of Economics, University of Patras for two years (2014-2016) as a Postdoctoral Fellow. From 2016 until 2018 she joined Enterprise Research Centre at Warwick Business School as a Research Fellow focusing on SMEs, innovation, productivity, exports and business eco-systems. As of late 2020 she is appointed as an Assistant Professor at the Athens University of Economics and Business, School of Business, Department of Marketing and Communication. She has published her work in Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, Small Business Economics, Economics of Innovation and New Technology, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, Journal of Evolutionary Economics and Eurasian Business Review. She has presented her research work in International Conferences including European International Business Academy (EIBA), R&D Management, and RENT.

Vasilios Kanellopoulos

Dr Vasilios Kanellopoulos
Economist
SPILEF Researcher

Vasilios Kanellopoulos was born in Athens in 1983. He holds a PhD in Economics from the University of Peloponnese as well as an MSc and BA in Economics from the University of Patras. His PhD and MSc dissertations deal with interesting issues of the field of Entrepreneurship and Economics, such as: a) “Essays on Determinants of New Firm Formation at a Regional Level” (PhD dissertation) and b) “Diffusion Index Models: An Application on Data of Greek Inflation” (MSc dissertation). His research interests focus on Entrepreneurship, Regional Development, Economic Geography, Economics of Innovation and Entrepreneurship and Industrial Economics. From February 2014 to June 2018, he had been working as Teaching Assistant of Theory of Industrial Organization and Business Economics at the University of Peloponnese (Department of Economics). His research work has been published in well-known academic journals such as Environment and Planning A: Economy and Space (4 in ABS ranking) as well as chapter (Essays on Regional Entrepreneurship and Development) in the conference Alliance for Entrepreneurship and Development in Western Greece 2017 which had taken place in Greece (Patras, 2017). The title of first is “The Effect of Knowledge Spillovers on Regional New Firm Formation: The Greek Manufacturing Case”, while the title of the second is “The Role of Regional Values of Social Capital, Trust, and Social Networks in Entrepreneurship in Greek Regions: The Services Case”. In this vein, other research activity is in progress. Part of his research work has been also presented at international conferences related to entrepreneurship such as EFERIC (Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise Research International Conference) in Spain (Extremadura, 2017) and Alliance for Entrepreneurship and Development in Western Greece 2017 in Greece (Patras, 2017). In addition, Vasilios Kanellopoulos has obtained significant experience in the completion of research projects as he has done important teaching, auxiliary and research work. Finally, he spends his leisure in reading, culture and sports.

George Koutsouradis

George Koutsouradis
Economist
Ph.D. Student, Department of Economics, University of Patras

George Koutsouradis was born in Patras in 1995. He is a PhD candidate in Economics in the university of Patras and holds a MSc in Investment Management from Cass Business School, City University of London, and a BSc in Economics from the University of Patras. His MSc dissertations is in the field of asset pricing “Enhancing the returns of BAB factor”. Previously he has been working as a financial assistant in the banking sector for Grant Thornton S.A. in Athens. Moreover, he was a part time author for Trade Finance Global London writing about Real Estate Investments. His research interest focus on Innovation Efficiency, Knowledge Spillovers and High Growth Firms in a Technology Heterogeneity Framework. Furthermore, he holds a diploma in Criminal Psychology from National and Kapodistrian University of Athens. Finally, he spends his leisure in reading, sailing, and boxing.

Konstantinos Kounetas

Dr. Konstantinos Kounetas
Economist
SPILEF Researcher
Associate Professor, Department of Economics, University of Patras
W: https://sites.google.com/site/konstantinosekounetas

Dr. Konstantinos Kounetas is an Associate Professor in Applied Industrial Organization, affiliated to the Department of Economics (University of Patras, Greece) and visiting Professor to the Department of Business and Economics (University of Naples, Italy). He holds a B.Sc. in Mathematics and M.A in Economics from the University of East Anglia, UK and a PhD in Economics from the Department of Economics at University of  Patras.His main publications have appeared in leading international journals including European Journal of Operational Research, The Energy Journal, Energy Economics, Energy Policy, International Journal of Production Economics, Annals of Operational Research, Technological Forecasting and Social Change, European Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Evolutionary Economics and Economic Modeling. Associate Professor Kounetas’s main area of research is energy economics and applied industrial organization with a focus on estimation of efficiency and productivity. He uses production, cost, and profit function approaches to estimate economic efficiency and total factor productivity. Although his research in this area is based on micro data, his specialty is, also, in the use of panel data. He has formulated a variety of panel data models to measure efficiency, which he has applied to banking, industries, countries, electricity companies, firms in different sectors etc. He has also worked on models using cross-sectional data applications that include hospitals and health centers. Dr. Kounetas serves as a referee in a wide variety of professional journals. He is also an evaluator of research proposals at National level (G.S.R.T and E.LI.DEK ) and has been participated in writing reports for organizations (i.e World Bank).

Eirini Stergiou

Dr. Eirini Stergiou
Economist
SPILEF Researcher
W: https://sites.google.com/view/estergiou

Dr. Eirini Stergiou is an economist, holding a BSc in Business Administration (2015) from the Department of Business Administration, University of Patras, Greece. She also holds a MSc in Economics (2016) with a focus on Applied Economics and Data Analysis and a PhD in Economics (2020) from the Department of Economics, University of Patras, Greece. During her PhD, she received a grant from the Research Committee of the University of Patras via “C. CARATHEODORI” program. Her research interests lie in the areas of Efficiency and Productivity Analysis and Applied Economics with a particular emphasis on Energy and Environmental Economics and Economics of Sustainable Development. Her work has been published in international peer reviewed academic journals and conferences while she has teaching experience at an undergraduate level at the Department of Economics and a post-graduate level as a teaching fellow at the Department of Chemistry, University of Patras.