Patent Toxicity
Prof. Elisa Giuliani , University of Pisa
A toxic-free world is one of the goals of the European Green Deal and a key objective of the WHO Inter-Organization Programme for the Sound Management of Chemicals. But while some toxic chemicals get banned for their toxicity, others are still in the making. We consider this as a motivation for taking a closer examination at the toxicity of chemical inventions. We combine patent analysis with computational toxicology and develop a methodological roadmap to measure Patent Toxicity – i.e. the extent to which a patent is made of “components” (or compounds) that are toxic for human health and/or the environment. To illustrate our proposed methodology, we analyse the toxicity of ten well-known hazardous chemicals. The measurement of patent toxicity opens up interesting avenues for future research with potentially strong policy impacts.
About the speaker
Elisa Giuliani is Full Professor at the Department of Economics & Management of the University of Pisa, and Director of the Responsible Management Research Center (REMARC). She is currently on sabbatical at Bocconi University (2019-2020). She has been Visiting Scholar at MIT Sloan School of Management (2017-2018), Visiting Professor at the University of Lund (2013-2016), ESRC Post-Doctoral Fellow at SPRU- University of Sussex (2005-2006) and Jean Monnet Fellow at the European University Institute (2004-2005).
She is Editor for Research Policy, in the Editorial Boards of Economic Geography, the Journal of Economic Geography and the Business and Human Rights Journal. She is a member of the Regional Studies Association Research Committee.
Her research interests lie at the intersection of development studies, economic geography, innovation studies and international business. Her core areas of research are industrial clusters & global value chains, multinational enterprises’ impacts on development processes and the dynamics of innovation networks. Recently, Professor Giuliani’s research focuses on the social and environmental responsibility of big companies, on innovation and human rights, and on the causes of business-related human rights infringements. She is especially interested in understanding how companies contribute to growing inequality through wrongful decision making and the abuse of human rights. She relies on quantitative and qualitative methods to conduct research on different empirical contexts, although most of her work is concentrated on developing and emerging economies.
Venue: via Zoom
Date: 19 November 2020
Time: 12:00 - 13:00 CET
