The Executive Committee is INGINEUS' decision-making body. The collegial body oversees the implementation of the project activities and their progress toward the objectives. It is composed of the following 5 members.


Alireza Naghavi (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) is Assistant Professor at the Dept. of Economics of University of Bologna (Italy), adjunct Professor at Johns Hopkins University, School of Advanced International Studies, and senior researcher at FEEM. He holds a PhD in Economics from University College Dublin (Ireland, 2004), a Master degree in Economics from University of Konstanz (Germany, 2000) and a BS in Business Administration from Louisiana State University (US, 1995). His research interests focus mainly on international trade, industrial organisation, growth, innovation systems and activities. Other fields of research interests are intellectual property rights and international political economy. He publishes in books and international refereed journals including Economic Theory, European Journal of Law and Economics, Review of Development Economics, Review of World Economics, and Resource and Energy Economics. [personal web page]


Gianmarco I.P. Ottaviano (Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei) received his BA in Economics at Bocconi University, his M.Sc. in Economics at LSE, and his PhD in Economics at the Université Catholique de Louvain. He was Professor of Economics at the University of Bologna since 2002 before moving to Bocconi University in 2008. He is research fellow of CEPR in the International Trade Programme, non-resident senior fellow of Bruegel Brussels, external research fellow of CReAM London and senior fellow at FEEM in the Research Programme "Global Challenges". He is co-author of works in international trade, urban economics and economic geography, including "Economic Geography and Public Policy" (Princeton University Press, 2003) and "Agglomeration and economic geography" (Handbook of Regional Science and Urban Economics, 2004). He is on the editorial boards of the Journal of Economic Geography (Oxford University Press) and Regional Science and Urban Economics (Elsevier). In 2008 the Nobel Prize Committee of the Royal Swedish Academy praised him for his research of "Agglomeration and Trade Rivisited" (with G.T. Tabuchi and J-F. Thisse, 2002, international Economic Review 43, 409-436). [personal web page]

Helena Barnard (Gordon Institute of Business Science, University of Pretoria) teaches in the areas of innovation, strategy and international business. She completed her PhD at Rutgers University in New Jersey in the USA in 2006 with a dissertation on how firms from developing countries use investment in the developed world as a strategy to increase their competitiveness. She has published academic research in Advances in Qualitative Research, the Journal of Management and Governance, and the International Journal of Technology Management. She has presented her work at numerous competitive conferences, e.g. the Academy of Management, the Academy of International Business, European Academy of International Business and GLOBELICS (Global Network for the Economics of Learning, Innovation, and Competence-building Systems). [personal web page]

Heidi Wiig Aslesen (Norwegian Institute for Studies in Innovation, Research and Education)  is Associate Professor. She holds a MA in Political Science with a major in International Political Economy from the University of Oslo, and a PhD in Economic Geography from Lund University, Sweden. At BI she holds the position as Associate Dean for Bachelor in Entrepreneurship, and lectures at the bachelor, master and PhD level. She has for several years carried out research in the field of innovation, focusing on the regional and sectoral dimensions of innovation, especially innovation in services. She has been leading, coordinating and taking part in several research project financed by both national (Norwegian research council, Innovation Norway, different ministries) and international sources (EU, OECD). [personal web page]