I am a post-doctoral researcher at the Department of Agriculture, Food and Environment at the University of Pisa. I hold my Industrial PhD in Human Sciences: psychology, communication and social sciences at the University of Macerata (UNIMC).

During my Ph.D., I had the opportunity to gain experience in applied research in sensory analysis, consumer science, and neuromarketing at the Italian Centre of Sensory Analysis (CIAS). As a visiting PhD student, I spent some months at the Department of Agri-Food Economics and Marketing in the School of Agriculture, Policy and Development of the University of Reading, focusing on Food Policy and Marketing Research Methods.

I currently work as a post-doctoral researcher at the University of Pisa and my research concentrates on innovation adoption processes in agriculture, digitalization in rural areas, twin transition, and agri-food marketing.

Key research interests

• Innovation in agriculture and rural areas
• Rural development strategies
• Agricultural Knowledge and Innovation System (AKIS)
• Digital ecosystems in rural areas

Core competences

• Multi-actor participatory approaches
• Rural and regional development
• Marketing and consumer behaviour

EU-funded and national projects

Agritech – PNRR (MUR) – Centro Nazionale per le Tecnologie dell’Agricoltura – Spoke 9 New technologies and methodologies for traceability, quality, safety, measurements and certifications to enanche the value and protect the typical traits in agri-food chains (2022-2025)

SmARTIES – Puzzling Out Smart Ruralities, Sound Knowledge And Rural (Agricultural/Agrifood) Entrepreneurial Ecosystem. Programme Funding PRIN 2020 (2022-2024)

NEMOS – A new educational model for acquisition of sustainability competences through service-learning. Programme Funding: co-funded by the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union

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

Some recent publications

Litvynchuk, S., Galenko, O., Cavicchi, A., Ceccanti, C., Mignani, C., Guidi, L., & Shevchenko, A. (2022). Conformational Changes in the Structure of Dough and Bread Enriched with Pumpkin Seed Flour. Plants, 11(20), 2762.

Cavicchi, A., Mignani, C., Paviotti G., Aleffi, C., Tomasi, S. (2022). Co-creazione di conoscenza nelle aree rurali: l’attualità del pensiero di Ghino Valenti nell’attività di didattica, ricerca e terza missione dell’Università di Macerata. In Co-operazione e co-creazione. Nuove riflessioni politico-economiche e giuridiche nel pensiero di Ghino Valenti (pp. 165-181). Aracne.

Ferrara, C., Pierdicca, R., Paolanti, M., Aleffi, C., Tomasi, S., Paviotti, G., Passarini, P., Mignani, C., Ferrara, A., Cavicchi, A., Frontoni, E. (2020). The role of ICTs and public-private cooperation for cultural heritage tourism. The case of Smart Marca/Il ruolo delle ICT e della cooperazione pubblico-privati per il turismo culturale. Il caso di Smart Marca. IL CAPITALE CULTURALE. Studies on the Value of Cultural Heritage, (10), 189-204.

Mignani, C., Bailetti, L. I., & Cavicchi, A. (2019). How consumer science can be employed in a terroir-based market strategy?. In Case Studies in the Wine Industry (pp. 89-100). Woodhead Publishing.

Check my other publications: