Pablo Pérez-Illana

Pablo Pérez-Illana is the Head of the Physical Sciences & Engineering Unit at the European Research Council Executive Agency since 16 October 2025. His unit focuses on the coordination of the scientific evaluation of proposals and follow-up of ERC-funded projects in the domain of Physical Sciences & Engineering.
 
Pablo Pérez-Illana joined the Directorate-General for Research of the European Commission in January 2004, as a scientific officer in FP5 Measurements & Testing programme at the Space & Transport directorate. He later served as a scientific officer and programme officer for Aeronautics, including the coordination of international collaboration and Clean Sky Joint Undertaking first call for proposals. In April 2021, he became Deputy Head of Unit for Transport Research & Innovation at CINEA, including for public-private partnerships in batteries, automotive, maritime transport, and cities.

Pablo Pérez-Illana is an Aeronautical Engineer from the Polytechnic University of Madrid, where he also conducted research on computational fluid dynamics and propulsion. Before joining the Commission, he worked at the European Space Agency in Germany, as a GMV flight dynamics engineer for the interplanetary missions MARS-EXPRESS, ROSETTA and SMART-1.