Laura Antonella Colombo
College: The Business School
Laura Antonella Colombo, MSc, is a doctoral researcher in Management at the University of Exeter Business School. Her research focuses on scaling strategies and sustainability approaches of co-operative social enterprises. She is currently researching discourses of scale and sustainability in Italian Social Agricultural Co-operatives. These are rapidly growing multi-stakeholder organisations, which are closely linked to social farming networks, solidarity purchasing groups, anti-mafia alliances and environmental justice movements.
She is an ASPIRE Associate Fellow and Associate Fellow of the HEA, holding a Certificate in Advanced Study: Learning and Teaching in Higher Education. She has been a tutor on BEM2020 Organisational Behaviour, which introduces undergraduate students to an interdisciplinary field of study to understand OB from a managerial and critical viewpoint. She contributed to several initiatives within the University of Exeter as a teacher and facilitator (e.g. in the context of ‘Food for Thought’ Grand Challenge; Exeter Progression; BEMM772 Hospitality Service Management).
She is a graduate in Political Science from the University of Milan and holds an MSc in Social Economy from the University of Bologna. Before joining Exeter University, she worked as a project developer for the European project “Hungry for Rights. Global Learning from Local Solutions in Alternative Food Systems”, on behalf of the NGO “Mani Tese”. Through participatory design and development of a non-formal peer education process, the project supported the creation of local multi-stakeholder platforms on Alternative Food System issues, amplifying their voices within the national and EU food agenda.
Before that, she worked across Europe as a project designer, bidding on national and European funding schemes, in partnership with NGOS, associations, cooperatives and environmentally motivated social enterprises. These included, among others, “Mani Tese”, “ACLI”, “Anima Mundi”, “Economia e Sostenibilità”, “Peterborough Environment City Trust” and “Sustainability and Education”.
