I am an associate professor of Rural Development Policies and Marketing & Communication, and a researcher with about 30 years of experience in research projects at European, national, regional and local levels. By now, this work has resulted in about 30 journal publications, several book chapters and other academic contributions.

Over time, my research has focused on rural development issues and evolution of the agro-food system: dynamics of the production-consumption patterns (turn to quality and valorisation strategies on territorial basis, food re-localisation and re-socialisation dynamics), power dynamics in the agri-food systems, new forms of governance in rural-urban areas, processes of social innovation aimed at promoting environmentally and socially sustainable food systems, development of the agro-ecological approach.

During the last 20 years I have been involved in 8 EU-funded projects. The most recent was the EU-funded H2020 project DIVERSIFOOD, dealing with agrobiodiversity management issues through a systemic and transdisciplinary approach. Apart from my research work, I have been teaching in various university courses and taking part in training activities. Since the early 2000s I have also been involved in the Social and Solidarity Economy movement at international, national and local levels.

Key research interests

• Transition/transformation towards sustainable food systems
• Social innovation around food
• Multi-level governance of food systems

Core competences

• Agricultural & food economics and policies
• Qualitative research methodologies
• Multi-actor and transdisciplinary approaches

EU-funded projects

DIVERSIFOOD – Embedding crop diversity and networking for local high quality food systems

FOODLINKS – Knowledge brokerage to promote sustainable food consumption and production: linking scientists, policymakers and civil society organisations

SOLINSA – Support of Learning and Innovation Networks for Sustainable Agriculture.

See the list of all projects the group is involved in here

Some recent publications

Rossi A., Bui S. and Marsden T. (2019). Redefining power relations in agrifood systems, Journal of Rural Studies, 68, pp. 147–158

Rossi A. and Bocci R. (2018) The Transformative Potential of Social Innovation. The Case of Wheat and Bread Value Chain in Tuscany, International Journal of Sociology of Agriculture & food, 2018, 24(3), pp. 431-448

Rossi A. (2017). Beyond Food Provisioning: The Transformative Potential of Grassroots Innovation around Food. Agriculture, 7, pp. 1-2

Favilli E., Rossi A. and Brunori G. (2015). Food networks: collective action and local development. The role of organic farming as boundary object. Organic Agriculture, 5 (3), pp. 235-243

Check my other publications: