Dr Francesca Calo
Senior Lecturer In Management
The Open University Business School
Biography
Professional biography
Dr. Francesca Calo (PhD) is a Senior Lecturer in Management at the Department of Public Leadership & Social Enterprise, where she brings academic experience from posts held in the UK and Italy. She is also the OU investigator for the Horizon Europe funded project ENCASE where she is exploring co-creation projects in relation to green transition. Prior to joining the Open University, she was a Post Doc Researcher at the Yunus Centre for Social Business and Health, working as researcher and project manager at the EU H2020 funded project SIRIUS and a Research fellow at CERGAS Bocconi University. She holds a PhD from Glasgow Caledonian University and a Double Degree MSc in International Management from Bocconi University and Fudan University.
Research interests
Dr Calo research interests include social enterprise and third sector organisation in health and social care, impact evaluation methods and social innovation. Some of the topics she is currently researching are: cocreation and social innovation among different actors for achieving green transition; third sector as a facilitator of integration of ethnic minorities, including migrants and refugees; methods for the evaluation of social enterprise and third sector contribution to health and well-being; social innovation processes in rural area. Her research was funded by European Commission, Scottish Government and Italian philanthropic foundations.
Teaching interests
Dr Calo teaching interests centre around the areas of third sector and social entrepreneurship. In the past she has taught undergraduate and postgraduate modules on social enterprise and social innovation at Glasgow Caledonian University and third sector management at Bocconi University.
Impact and engagement
Dr Calo is collaborating with 5 research infrastructure to develop co-creation projects in their communities. She has collaborated to the organisation of international policy dialogue workshops in Bruxelles and national based workshop on the integration of ethnic minority mothers in the labour market. She has been invited to participate to the Scottish Government New Scots Refugees Integration Strategy Evidence Group and she was the main coordinator of the “Flash Mob for integration” during the Glasgow Science Festival 2018.
International links
She collaborates with the following research network:
EMES (International Research Network);
ISIRC (Social Innovation Research Conference);
ISTR (International Society for Third Sector Research)
Projects
A European Network of Research Infrastructures for CO2 Transport and Injection
The EU has committed to reducing greenhouse gas emissions by 55% by 2030 and becoming carbon neutral by 2050. Deployment of CO2 Capture and Storage (CCS) from different industrial sectors across Europe is a powerful fast track approach to abate CO2 emissions. CO2 transport and injection are the essential links between capture sites and storage reservoirs. The goal of ENCASE is to contribute to a safer, more cost-effective, and environmentally friendly CO2 transport and well injection. ENCASE aims to continuously improve 7 world-leading CCS-related research infrastructures (RIs) in the consortium with state-of-the-art scientific instruments, tools and methods to be the backbone for research and development of CCS technologies. Co-development of technologies will enhance the capability of RIs, increase RI personnel’s competence and enable these RIs to better address and close key knowledge gaps. ENCASE will safeguard and increase the competitiveness of these European RIs through strong collaboration with the CCS infrastructure operators, service companies, academia, and SMEs. The RIs will be available for the industry/SMEs for prototyping their new equipment/technology, e.g., pumping concepts, metering technologies, and simulator tools for monitoring, controlling and predicting the CO2 streams with impurities. The high-quality data produced in ENCASE will lift the knowledge level of industry and academia, which will contribute to the development of innovative companies and the education of future workforce for the CCS industry. Social innovation labs and co-creation initiatives will be developed by involving different stakeholders to address specific societal needs and better integrate the RIs in the local communities. Our success will improve the design and operation of CCS infrastructures and meet the EU climate goals. Thus, the enhanced research capacity build by ENCASE will benefit scientific community, industry, policy-makers, environment and society.
Publications
Book
Migrants and Refugees in Europe – Work Integration in Comparative Perspective (2023)
Foodsaving in Europe. At the Crossroad of Social Innovation (2017)
Book Chapter
Social innovation and collaborative governance: The case of surplus food redistribution (2024)
Social partners: barriers and enablers (2023)
Examining Non-EU Migrants and Refugees’ Agency When Navigating the British Labour Markets (2022)
Journal Article
How and with whom do educators learn in an online professional development microcredential (2023)
Rethinking the Role of Volunteering in the Labor Market Inclusion of Migrants (2023)
Exploring Collaborative Governance Processes Involving Nonprofits (2023)
Social innovation during turbulent times: a systematic literature review and research agenda (2023)
COOL Music: a ‘bottom-up’ music intervention for hard-to-reach young people in Scotland (2020)
