Anna Spadavecchia is a Senior Lecturer in the Hunter Centre for Entrepreneurship and a Fellow of the Higher Education Academy. Previously, she was Associate Professor at the Henley Business School, University of Reading. She holds a PhD in Economic History from the London School of Economics and Political Science. Her doctoral thesis was awarded the Best PhD Dissertation Prize by the European Business History Association (2004) and by the USA-based Business History Conference (Krooss Prize, 2005).

Anna’s research interests are in the fields of Entrepreneurship and Small Business Management, and Innovation from a regional perspective. She has worked on various historical and contemporary facets of these topics. One facet concerns the role of national and regional policies in promoting the development of small businesses (SMEs) and clusters in Italy from 1951 to 1991. An additional angle is the impact of external economies on the innovation activity of independent inventors, SMEs and large corporations. A further perspective concerns the use of patents by independent inventors and corporations in their attempts to control markets in the early 20^th century.

Anna held visiting fellowships at the Centre for Business History, Copenhagen Business School (March-April 2017); Department of Political Economy and Statistics, Università di Siena (January-February 2017); Rutgers Business School, Newark, USA (October, 2009); Department of Economics, University of Tübingen (August, 2003). She is a member of the British Academy of Management, the Business History Conference and the European Business History Association.

Development of Clusters, Cluster Policies, Policies for SMEs, Innovation, Business History