Elena Marie Enseñado

Elena Marie Enseñado currently works as a specialist in Nature-based Climate Change Adaptation planning. Her expertise includes climate change and environmental planning, learning for socio-technical transitions and social-ecological resilience, ecosystem services and nature-based solutions, and participatory tools and methods.

At IHS, Elena is involved in advisory, research, education, and capacity-building activities. She has more than 15 years of experience in project development, management, monitoring, and evaluation.

Key project involvements at IHS include the following:

- SCORE: Smart Control of the Climate Resilience in European Coastal Cities (European Commission - Horizon 2020 Programme, 2021-2025);

- PROSPECT: Peer Powered Cities and Regions (European Commission - Horizon 2020 Programme, 2017-2020);

- SUSTAIN: Strengthening higher education in Urban Sustainability and Transitions towards internationalization of Academic Institutions and Networks (European Commission, 2013-2016);

- Covenant CapaCITY: Capacity building of local governments to advance Local Climate and Energy Action (European Commission, 2010-2013).

Aside from working with cities and regions in Europe, she also has working experience in Asia, Africa, and South America. She has worked on various projects funded, for example, by the European Commission, the Netherlands Enterprise Agency, NUFFIC, UN-Habitat, and other clients. 

She also contributes to different publications, such as UN-Habitat’s Sustainable urbanization in the Paris Agreement : Comparative Review of Nationally Determined Contributions for urban content and Urban Climate Change Research Network’s Third Assessment Report on Climate Change and Cities.

Elena joined IHS after completing her Master's degree in Urban Management and Development, specializing in Urban Environmental Management and Climate Change, in 2013.  Before her graduate studies in the Netherlands, she worked on various environmental projects in the Philippines.