Robin Smail (External Expert)

Professional experience

Robin Smail (UK/IE) has nearly 30 years experience of working with regional economic development and EU Structural Funds and currently runs his own consultancy-training company, working across the EU. An economist by training, he worked in the Evaluation Division of the Scottish Development Agency / Scottish Enterprise, with responsibilities in the field of project and investment appraisal, as well as the regeneration of a post-industrial region of Scotland. In the 1990s, he worked as a national expert inside DG Regional Policy looking after technical assistance for the ENVIREG programme of EU co-financed investments in waste water, solid waste and water supply infrastructure. He was subsequently the Director of the Yorkshire & Humberside representative office in Brussels and later Associate Director with a leading communications company (Hill & Knowlton, Brussels). Robin worked for EIPA from 2003 to 2011. As an Expert in EIPA, he published the Handbook “Managing Structural Funds”, and developed trainings on all aspects of the Funds, including the appraisal and evaluation of public capital investment projects and cost-benefit analyses. Robin still teaches macroeconomics across the European institutions and beyond.