Smiljka served as one of the founding members of ASTP's Europe Committee before joining the Board as Vice President Europe for the term 2022-23.
She is a KT professional with the long-term experience as a researcher and research and technology transfer manager in academic institutions and pharma industry. Her background is in chemistry and molecular biology. In the past, Smiljka Vikic-Topic established office for technology transfer at the University of Zagreb School of Medicine in 2009, working a great deal on EU projects implementation and proposals’ writing. She teaches soft skills at doctoral studies in biomedicine and occasionally evaluates projects with commercialization activities.
She spent altogether four years in the USA working in molecular biology labs at Wake Forest University, NIH and Mayo Clinic and was later trained at NIH Office of Technology Transfer.
Smiljka is an active member of ASTP and is interested in the EU affairs related to R&D, particularly as a member of the Alliance4Life_ACTIONS project, a bottom-up initiative of twelve leading life science institutions from eleven EU-13 countries that aims at closing the divide in European health research and innovation.
As of January 2023, she joins the EURICE team as a Senior Research and Innovation Manager and Head of the Croatian branch of Eurice; RISE – Research and Innovation Services d.o.o. From December 2024 Smiljka transitioned into an advisory role, continuing to support key RISE initiatives in the area of Intellectual Property (IP) management, knowledge transfer and valorisation.