Prof. Roberta Rabellotti, panelist at Rethinking Clusters Workshop

It is with great pleasure to announce that Rethinking Clusters Workshop will host Professor Roberta Rabellotti as panelist in a stimulating round table on recent and future trends of cluster research.

Roberta Rabellotti is Professor of Economics at the Department of Political and Social Science, University of Pavia (Italy). She also holds a position as Assigned Professor at the University of Aalborg (Denmark) and is associated with the IKE (Innovation, Knowledge and Economic Dynamics) Research Group (Department of Business and Management) in Copenhagen.

After graduating in Economics at Università Bocconi, she got a Master of Science in Development Economics at the University of Oxford (St. Antony’s College) and a Doctor of Philosophy at the Institute of Development Studies, University of Sussex.

Since then, she provided several influential contributions focused on regional economics, innovation and development, clusters and small enterprises, multinationals and Global Value Chains. Her article ‘Upgrading in Global Value Chain: lessons from Latin American clusters’, published in World development in 2005 is one of the milestones of the Global Value Chain literature. 

Roberta has widely published in international outlets. She authored more than 45 articles in peer-reviewed journals, more than 16 book chapters and nine books, which were published by Harvard University Press, Edward Elgar, Palgrave and Routledge, among others. Furthermore, she authored numerous working papers, policy reports and other publications, which allowed spreading knowledge on internationalization and development outside academia too. Indeed, her influence span well outside academia; she has been actively engaging with international organizations, especially regarding the supporting of development and innovation in developing countries, with a special focus on Latin America first and China more recently. Indeed, she has provided academic advice to, amongst others, the European Commission, the Inter-American Investment Bank (IADB), OECD; UNIDO; UN-CEPAL, UNCTAD, and various national and regional governments. 

Throughout her career, Roberta participated in and leaded several research and consultancy projects. Furthermore, she actively engaged in the academic community, as member of editorial boards of journals and as part of the board of the Italian Society of Economics, proudly fighting against gender discrimination in academia and in the Economics field in particular.