I am a senior lecturer in public policy at the School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde, Glasgow. I have been researching on regulatory reform, better regulation and impact assessment since 2000. In 2010, I completed my doctoral studies. A revised version of my PhD thesis has been published by the ECPR press. Focusing on the diffusion of regulatory impact analysis, this book shows how the OECD transnational networks have framed and promoted such a policy innovation, but there is a limited extent of policy interdependence in the implementation and evaluation stages. International organisations as institutions producing and transferring knowledge have become one of mine research interests.
Recently, I have been shifting my focus on regulatory institutions. I found that independent regulatory agencies make a difference in accelerating the compliance towards the EU model of railway liberalisation. I have also applied institutional theory of regulatory enforcement for explaining the diffusion of economic scripts of business regulation in religion governance.
Through my last research project, I tested whether EU and OECD countries are converging toward the U.S. model of judicial review of regulation. My finding shows that there is convergence: more countries adopted legislations that allow courts to review the process of notification, publication and consultation of regulatory proposals. Countries that are not yet adopting a judicially supervised rulemaking are parliamentary systems and country with highly independent judicial systems.
Before joining academia, I gained extensive experience as a research consultant for private companies as well as Italian national and regional public authorities. During my PhD study at the University of Exeter, I worked as a full-time research on several projects on regulatory quality and policy appraisal funded by the European Commission, the World Bank and the UK Economic and Social Research Council. An outcome of this research activity has been published in a co-authored book with Claudio M. Radaelli - Regulatory Quality in Europe - and in several journal articles and book chapters. I have extensive experience in governmental projects on the implementation of RIA in Italy and the UK, as well as a research project funded by the World Bank.
2018 Visiting scholar, Institute for Public Administration, University of Leiden, the Hague Campus [July-August]
2018 Visiting scholar, Institute for Political Science, University of Heidelberg [March-April]
2012–present Lecturer in Public Policy, School of Government and Public Policy, University of Strathclyde
2015 Visiting scholar, Institut d’etudes politiques, historiques et internationales, University of Lausanne
2011–2012 Teaching Fellow, University of Tuscia, Viterbo, Italy
2009–2012 Postdoctoral Research Fellow at the Institut d’Études Poli- tiques et Internationales (IEPI), Université de Lausanne and the University of Zurich
2004–2008 Research Fellow, Centre for European Governance, Department of Politics, University of Exeter and at the Centre for European Studies, University of Bradford Nominated research assistant in a DG Enterprise grant and an ESRC grant. Research assistant for 3 EU 6th Framework Projects.
2014 Postgraduate Certificate in Advanced Academic Studies, University of Strathclyde
2010 PhD in Politics, University of Exeter
2001 M.A. in European Integration, University of Bradford
1998 B.Sc. in Economics, University of Rome “La Sapienza”