Manuel Lago is an experienced researcher and consultant in environmental/natural resource economics and a Senior Fellow at Ecologic Institute in Berlin, where he has been working since 2009. Manuel Lago's line of research is centred around the application of economic thinking for the increased understanding of environmental policy trade-offs and its mainstreaming into other areas of public policy. He specialises in integrative assessments through the economic analysis of environmental policies and regulations, ecosystem goods and services, environmental valuation, and compliance cost accounting. Additionally, his research at Ecologic Institute includes the analysis of economic aspects related to the practical implementation of the Water Framework Directive (WFD), the Marine Strategy Framework Directive (MSFD), biodiversity protection policies, and Adaptation to Climate Change strategies. A native Spanish speaker, he also works in English.

Dr. Manuel Lago has extensive coordination expertise as project manager. From 2016 to 2019, he coordinated the AQUACROSS project, Knowledge, Assessment, and Management for Aquatic Biodiversity and Ecosystem Services Across EU Policies, a large collaborative H2020 Research and Innovation Action lead by the Ecologic Institute (with 16 international partners), which aimed to advance knowledge and application of ecosystem-based management for aquatic ecosystems to support the achievement of the EU 2020 Biodiversity Strategy targets. In addition, he has lead work packages and been actively involved in a number of large European research projects sponsored by the European Commission Directorate-General for Research and Innovation (i.e. Economics of Climate Change Adaptation in Europe (EconADAPT), Demonstrate Ecosystem Services Enabling Innovation in the Water Sector (DESSIN), Restoring Rivers for Effective Catchment Management (REFORM), Evaluating Economic Policy Instruments for Sustainable Water Management in Europe (EPI-Water), Biodiversity of Freshwater Ecosystems: Status, Trends, Pressures and Conservation Priorities (BioFresh)).

Dr. Manuel Lago also has experience leading consulting projects for the European Commission, the European Environment Agency (EEA) and the Organisation for Economic Co-operation and Development (OECD) among others. In the past, he lead several tasks for the European Topic Centre in Inland, Coastal, and Marine Waters (ETC-ICM) for the EEA, where he was responsible for socio-economic analyses of the management of Europe's sea and surface waters. He also advised the European Topic Centre on Biological Diversity (ETC-BD) on environmental economic aspects of the Ecosystems Services Approach and the protection of biodiversity. Dr. Manuel Lago was a member of the Working Group on Economics and Social Analysis (ESA) for the implementation of the MSFD and contributing author on the initial assessment and guidance on the development of economic elements under Article 8.