Carmen Laplaza Santos works for the European Commission where she is currently the Head of the Health Innovations and Ecosystems Unit within the Directorate-General for Research and Innovation, prior to this she was the Deputy Head of the Innovative and Personalised Medicine Unit within the same Directorate-General. Carmen has also worked for the Directorate-General for Communications Networks, Content and Technology where she was Deputy Head of the E-Health, Wellbeing and Ageing Unit and she was also responsible for the budget sector dealing mainly with the financial implementation of the Seventh Framework Programme (FP7) and the Horizon 2020 research framework programmes.

Before joining the European Commission in 2008 she held senior roles in financial and strategic departments of different sectors, such as retail, advertising and banking. Carmen studied at the University of Navarra, Spain and in 1994 she obtained a degree in economics.