Research

I am currently working on 'green' innovation. I am completing my work on an ESRC funded project, which aims to investigate knowledge linkages between UK motorsport and cleantech firms. The aim is to get a better understanding of the enablers of, and barriers to, successful knowledge transactions and to develop recommendations for knowledge management and innovation policy.

My Ph.D project critically investigated the role of personal networks for knowledge flows in innovative clusters. I have conducted a survey and interviews with 105 R&D workers in 46 companies in the Greater Cambridge Region. The results question the widespread assumption of technological knowledge spillovers and lead to a more nuanced understanding of the role and functioning of personal knowledge networks.

Furthermore, I worked on (i) the role of Popper’s evolutionary thinking for human ecological research, (ii) the social construction and political regulation of images of old towns, (iii) the the implementation of normative ecological ideas of a national park in touristic institutions, and (iv) the role of tourism for urban and regional development in Salzburg.

My general academic interests:

  • Urban and regional economic development

  • Entrepreneurship, innovation and strategy

  • Social networks, social capital, social inequality

  • Work and labour markets 

  • Construction, diffusion, adaptation of knowledge

  • Human-environment interrelationship

  • Philosophy and methodology of social science