Program Committee


 David Castle is Professor and Chair of Innovation in the Life Sciences ESRC Innogen Centre University of Edinburgh High School Yards Edinburgh. His research addresses the interaction between science and technology innovation and society, particularly the ethical and legal issues posed by new biotechnology.
   Matty Demont is Senior Agricultural Economist at the Africa Rice Center (WARDA), Saint-Louis, Senegal. His research is on impact assessment of agricultural innovations and public policies, agricultural productivity and value chains (consumer economics and generic advertising of local rice). He holds a P.h.D from Katholieke Universiteit Leuven
 

Anwar Naseem is Assistant Professor at McGill University Department of Agricultural Economics. His specialization is in the fields of Economics of science and technology, impact and regulation of agricultural biotechnology, intellectual property rights, modeling mixed R&D oligopolies; International agricultural development, the role of private sector in agricultural R&D, science policy.

  Stuart Smyth is Research Associate at the College of Biotechnology, University of Saskatchewan 
The focus of his research is on how societies deal with innovation and in particular the innovation of biotechnology, and on the relationship between innovation and liability.
  Justus Wesseler is Professor Agricultural and Food Economics, Center of Life and Food Sciences Weihenstephan, Technische Universität München. His main field of research is decision making under uncertainty and irreversibility using the real option approach applied to impact assessment and cost-benefit analysis of new agriculture technologies, natural resource management systems and rural development projects. He is Editor of AgBioForum, the leading journal in the field of management and economics of agriculture biotechnology
   Sara Savastano , an Italian national, is Assistant Professor in economics at the University of Rome Tor Vergata since 2008. She is the secretary general of ICABR. After working, from 2001 to 2005 at the Development Research Group of the World Bank, she served as an Economist at the Public Investment Evaluation Unit of the Italian Ministry of Economy and Finance until 2008. Her research focuses on option value theory, investment analysis, development economics, rural development and agriculture, agriculture efficiency and productivity analysis.