Ismael Rafols is a senior researcher at INGENIO (CSIC-UPV, Univ. Politec. València) and at the UNESCO Chair on Diversity and Inclusion in Global Science at CWTS, Leiden University. He works on S&T evaluation, foresight and research strategies, with a focus on how more epistemic diversity and social inclusion may lead to more equitable distribution of the benefits of science. His recent studies focus on epistemic inequities in funding portfolios and research priority setting for societal challenges such as bird flu or obesity, and issues related to Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs), particularly in health and agriculture.

Ismael has been involved in policy initiatives ‘responsible metrics’, such as the the Leiden Manifesto or the EC Expert Group on Open Science Indicators, or discussions on biases against research topics from the Global South in assessment and databases. Previously, he had developed indicators and mapping methods for the evaluation of interdisciplinary research, e.g. in emergent fields such as bio and nanotechnology.

Ismael has also worked at the Science Policy Research Unit (SPRU) in University of Sussex (2005-12) and at the Centre for Science and Technology Studies (CWTS) in Leiden University (2020-24). Previously, he received an MSc in Science and Technology Policy from SPRU (Sussex), a BSc in Physics from the University of Barcelona, a PhD in biophysics from Tohoku University (Sendai, Japan) and was a postdoc in nanobiotechnology at Cornell University. In between academic positions, he has worked on international cooperation in Oxfam and the City Council of Barcelona.

His publications are available in open in GoogleScholar and ORCID.