About
Francesco Rentocchini is an economist at the University of Ferrara (Italy), where he teaches in and sits on the faculty board of the PhD programme in Economics, Management and Methods for the Sustainable Transition (ECMAN).
From 2020 to 2026 he was Senior Economic Analyst at the European Commission’s Joint Research Centre (JRC) in Seville, where he worked on industrial R&D, mergers and acquisitions and intellectual property, including the EU Industrial R&D Investment Scoreboard. From 2016 to 2026 he was Associate Professor of Business Economics at the Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods (DEMM) of the University of Milan. Before that, he was Lecturer and then Associate Professor in Strategy and Innovation at the University of Southampton (UK).
His research is in the economics of innovation and science, industrial organisation, innovation policy and entrepreneurship. He studies the two-way flows between the production of scientific knowledge and the development of technological innovation, the green and digital transitions, start-ups and firm growth, and university–industry collaboration. His articles have appeared in, among others, Research Policy, Industrial and Corporate Change, the International Journal of Industrial Organization, Oxford Economic Papers, Regional Studies and Small Business Economics.
He was Associate Editor of the European Management Review (2016–2020) and guest editor for Industry and Innovation and Small Business Economics. From 2020 to 2025 he was a member of the external faculty board of the PhD programme in Regional Science and Economic Geography at the Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI). He has held research periods at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research (UK), UNU-MERIT (the Netherlands) and INGENIO (Spain), and holds a PhD from the University of Bologna.
Current positions
- 2026 – Faculty member, PhD programme in Economics, Management and Methods for the Sustainable Transition (ECMAN) University of Ferrara, Ferrara, Italy
Previous positions
- 2020 – 2025 Member of the external faculty board, PhD in Regional Science and Economic Geography Gran Sasso Science Institute (GSSI), L'Aquila, Italy
- 2020 – 2026 Senior Economic Analyst European Commission, Joint Research Centre (JRC), Unit B.6 Industrial Strategy, Skills and Technology Transfer, Seville, Spain
- 2016 – 2026 Associate Professor of Business Economics Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods (DEMM), University of Milan, Milan, Italy
- 2016 – 2019 Visiting Research Fellow Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
- 2015 – 2016 Associate Professor in Strategy and Innovation Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
- 2013 – 2015 Lecturer in Strategy and Innovation Southampton Business School, University of Southampton, Southampton, UK
- 2010 – 2013 Marie Curie Fellow (FP7-PEOPLE COFUND) INGENIO (CSIC-UPV), Valencia, and Department of Economics, University of Trento, Spain / Italy
- 2007 – 2010 Postdoctoral Fellow Department of Economics and Management, University of Trento, Trento, Italy
- 2006 Research Fellow UNU-MERIT, Maastricht, the Netherlands
Education
- 2007 PhD in Law and Economics University of Bologna, Bologna, Italy