Clara Caiafa is a researcher at the Technology, Innovation, and Society (TIS) research group of the Eindhoven University of Technology in the Netherlands. Her research focuses on the opportunities and risks for sustainable development arising from the processes of structural change in the green transition, including changes in production technologies, reconfiguration of global value chains, and implications for specialization and development policies in countries and regions. Her research relates to topics like energy policy and planning, green industrial policy, smart specialization, technology transfer, and climate policy.  She has expertise on both quantitative and qualitative methods, specially input-ouput modelling and expert interviews.

Clara was a guest researcher at the Basque Center for Climate Change (BC3) in the low carbon transitions research group between September and November 2024.

She was also a Chapter Scientist and Contributing Author in chapter "Innovation, Technology Development and Transfer" of the Working Group III contribution to the Sixth Assessment Report of the United Nations Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC) on climate change mitigation.

Clara has a MSc in Economics from the Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam (2024), a MSc in International Politics from the Katholieke Universiteit Leuven (2019), and a Bachelor’s degree in International Relations from the Pontificia Universidade Católica de Minas Gerais (2017), Brazil.

Before joining TU/e, she worked as a Junior Researcher in the group Macroeconomics & Innovation from the Department of Economics at PUC Minas, Brazil, and received a research scholarship from the Minas Gerais Research Support Foundation (FAPEMIG) to conduct research on the economic cooperation between China and Latin America. She also worked as a Research Assistant at the Center for Research on Peace and Development at KU Leuven (Belgium). 

Before joining academia, Clara had work experience in the private sector and international organizations. In Brazil, she worked as a Business Development Specialist at the Brazil-China Chamber of Business. After her Masters, she worked as a Junior Policy Advisor for the World Health Organization office at the European Union in Brussels. She joined the energy sector when she worked at the Commercial Regulated Department from Fluxys, the Belgian gas transmission system operator (TSO).