Dr. Darja Piciga, CMDC Cercle mondial du consensus, Geneva, Switzerland, and Environment Directorate, Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment, Slovenia

Dr. Darja Piciga is an analyst, policy maker and manager in state administration, and expert on developing knowledge-based society, recently also integral sustainable economy and society, with a Ph.D. in Cognitive Developmental and Educational Psychology. Major research areas of her work in the period 1980 – 2000 were Cognitive Development, Learning and Teaching, Mathematics and Science Education, Information Literacy, Primary Education, Secondary Education, Higher Education, Comparative and Evaluation Studies in Education, Research and Development Policy. She is author of more than 100 scientific and professional publications and author or co-author of reports to international audience on education and R&D policy in Slovenia, such as:

Piciga, Darja. Secondary education in Slovenia, (Collection Education, Guide to secondary education in Europe). Strasbourg: Council of Europe Press, 1995.

PICIGA, Darja. Private education in Slovenia in the context of educational reform. Slov. stud., 1998 (1995), 17, 1/2, 37-50.

Piciga, Darja, Lesjak, Igor: Technology Centres and Research Spin-offs as Two Pillars of RTD Policy in Slovenia. Report, presented at the Knowledge Economy Forum II, World Bank and Finland, Helsinki, March 2003.

In the nineties, she was one of the leading Slovenian experts on education and cognitive development, working at the Educational Research Institute in Ljubljana: head or member of expert groups and committees for primary and secondary education, project leader of evaluation, comparative, innovation projects at all levels of education. For 10 years she has been in the forefront of a movement for education based on human values, informal leader of opposition against neo-liberal reform of primary and secondary education. During 1998 – 1999, she was Counsellor to the Deputy Prime Minister, and in 2000 Head of the Strategic Council for Education of the Republic of Slovenia.

In the period 2001 – 2010, Dr. Darja Piciga worked as a civil servant, co-ordinating national development policies in the context of EU R&D and innovation policy, and managing EU Structural Funds in higher education, science and technology. She designed and implemented a new Science and Technology instrument - the programme of 10 Research Centres of Excellence - and also headed the Office for Coordination of Development Policies and Structural Funds at the Ministry of Higher Education, Science and Technology.

Her intensive work in the fields of climate change and sustainable development has started in 2008, and included, among others, participation in the project Development Scenarios for Slovenia to 2035 - Trends and opportunities in times of Climate Change, preparation of three reports on the implementation of the comprehensive Operational Programme for the Reduction of Green-House Gas Emissions by 2012 of the Republic of Slovenia, participation in the preparation of  the Draft Strategy for the Transition of Slovenia to a Low Carbon Society by 2050 and elaboration of horizontal strategies on innovation, education, awareness and communication. During 2012-2013, she is participating in designing the strategic and programming documents of the Republic of Slovenia for the 2014-2020 period, including the Slovenian Industrial Policy and Slovenia’s Development Strategy, which will serve as the basis for the new EU budget - structural funds. She is also responsible for climate change and sustainable development in areas connected to education, training, awareness and innovation.

In addition to her work as the senior expert at the Ministry of Agriculture and the Environment of the Republic of Slovenia, she pursues an international career as independent expert for integral policy planning in sustainable development, as presented on her website www.dpiciga.com. She actively participates in national and international societies, such as the European Sustainable Development Network (ESDN) in which she is the rapporteur for Slovenia.

She took note of the volumes Integral Research and Innovation and Integral Economics by alternative economists Ronnie Lessem and Alexander Schiffer in the beginning of 2011. Shortly thereafter she began to cooperate with them and applied the Integral Worlds Approach in the process of preparing the strategy of transition of Slovenia to a low carbon society (climate strategy), aimed at implementing the vision of Slovenia as a low carbon society in 2050 as a highly integrated and inclusive society with an excellent business sector and a high quality of life, space and natural environmen. She is currently engaged in elaboration and promotion of the program for the Integral Green Slovenian Economy : IGSE.