Enrica DE CIAN

Enrica De Cian is full professor in Environmental Economics at Ca’ Foscari Unversity of Venice (Italy). She was an ERC Starting Grant grantee with the project ENERGYA – Energy use for Adaptation (2018-2023).

Before joining Ca' Foscari,  she was senior researcher at Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei (FEEM) and scientist at CMCC Foundation – Centro Euro-Mediterraneo sui Cambiamenti Climatici.

Her research focuses on the global impacts of climate change on the economy and households. She combines different disciplines, specifically environmental economics, climate science, microeconomics. She relies on integrated assessment models to study how human and natural systems could interact under future changing climate and economy. She applies econometric and statistical methods to historical data to understand how human and natural systems have coped with observed changes in the past. Secondary research interests include technological change, the role of institutions in the transition toward sustainable development. She has also worked at the development of the adaptation module of the WITCH model, one of the first Integrated Assessment Models combining mitigation and adaptation policies to climate change. 

At the moment her work focuses on households and firms' adaptation to climate change in the context of the energy transition, with a focus on energy habits as a mean to respond to weather shocks and adjust to climate conditions.

She has collaborated with several research organizations. Between 2004 and 2005 she was research assistant at the climate change unit at CEPS in Brussels. Between 2005 and 2006 she was visiting researcher at Joint Programme on the Policy and the Science of Climate Change (JP) at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT) in Cambridge. In 2012 she visited the ZEW in Mannheim, where she worked on the joint FEEM-ZEW project, “Diffusion of Climate-Friendly Technologies – The Role of Intellectual Property Rights, Human Capital and Environmental Policy – Climtech”.

In 2012 she was awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Outgoing Fellowship and she was a research scholar at the Department of Earth and Environment, Boston University, US. She worked with Prof. Ian Sue Wing at the development of novel economic methods and models to evaluate the economic consequences of climate change impacts and adaptation.

She has been involved in several international projects. In particular, she has been the leader of the PECE project funded by United Nations University (UNU-WIDER) and the FEEM leader of the PATHWAYS project (EC, FP7). She has also contributed to the first Country Report “Pathways to Deep Decarbonization in Italy“, which analyzed different decarbonization scenarios in 2015 and she has been a member of the Steering Committee of the EMF28 study on scenarios for transforming the European Energy System.

Since 2007 she has been a lecturer in the PhD program Science and management of climate change at Ca’ Foscari University of Venice. Since 2014 she has been a lecturer in the Environmental Program Studies at Boston University Study Abroad Venice. She has published in the fields of climate change economics, integrated assessment modeling, energy economics, and environmental and resource economics.

Main externally-funded projects

2018, ENERGYA, ERC Starting Grant

2017, COACCH, H2020 collaborative project

2016, COP21RIPPLES, H2020 collaborative project

2015, PECE Fuelling clean energy transitions: The political economy of energy innovation,  UNU-WIDER

2013, PATHWAYS, EU FP7 collaborative project

2012,  DYNamic feedbacks of climate impacts on current Adaptation and Mitigation Investment Choice, EU FP7 Marie Curie Project

2012, EMF 28: The Effects of Technology Choices on EU Climate Policy, Stanford University

2011, ClimTech Climate-Friendly Technologies, The Role of Intellectual Property Rights, Human Capital and Environmental Policy. SEEK project

2010, AMPERE Assessment of Climate Change Mitigation Pathways and Evaluation of the Robustness of Mitigation Cost Estimates, EU FP7 collaborative project

2009, PASHMINA PAradigm SHifts Modelling and INnovative Approaches. EU FP7 collaborative project

Professional and Academic Experiences

2018 - present, Principal Investigator, ENERGYA - Energy use for Adaptation project, ERC Starting Grant

2017 - present, Associate Professor, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Department of Economics

2020 - present, Coordinator, PhD in Research in Science and Management, Coordinator, 2020-present

2008 - present, Research scientist, Euro-Mediterranean Center on Climate Change – CMCC, Italy

2018 - present, Research Scientist, RFF-CMCC European Institute on Economics and the Environment - Italy

2018 - 2021, Coordinator, Master of Research in Science and Management, Coordinator, 2018-present

2006 - 2017, Researcher, Fondazione Eni Enrico Mattei – FEEM, Italy

2008 - 2017, Lecturer, PhD Program in Science and Management of Climate Change, Ca’ Foscari University of Venice

2014 - 2017, Lecturer, Boston University Study Abroad Venice, Environmental Program Studies

2014 - present, Associate Deputy Editor of Climatic Change

2012 – 2013, Marie Skłodowska-Curie International Outgoing Fellowship, Boston University, Department of Earth and Environment, USA

January 2012 – March 2012, Visting researcher, ZEW, Mannheim, Germany (SEEK project ClimTech)

January 2004 – June 2004, Research assistant and stagier, Centre for European Policy Studies (CEPS), Brussels, Belgium. Leonardo programme. Research area: energy, climate change and sustainable development.

Education

September 29 2008, PhD in Economics and Organization, Ca' Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Principal subjects covered: Endogenous Technical Change and Climate Policy. Econometric Analysis and Stabilization Scenarios

September 2005 – June 2006, Visiting student and researcher, Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Joint Programme on the Policy and the Science of Climate Change (JP) and the Centre for Environment and Energy Economics (CCEPR) Cambridge (USA)

November 23 2003, Degree in Economics (Laurea cum laude in Economia e Commercio), Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Italy. Principal subjects covered: International Trade and Climate Change: Comparing Trade Sanctions and No Regret Energy Policies

Affiliations/Memberships

2006 - Present EAERE, European Association of Environmental and Resource Economists

2013 - Present  SISC, Società Italiana per le Scienze del Clima

2014 - Present  IAERE, Italian Association of Environmental and Resources Economists

Recognitions

Climatic Change, Associate Deputy Editor, 2014-present

Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei FEEM, Research Paper Award for the most influential paper as measured by the AIS (Article Influence Score), 2013

Massachusetts Institute of Technology (MIT), the Joint Program on the Policy and the Science of Climate Change (JP) and the Centre for Environment and Energy Economics (CCEPR) , Cambridge (USA) International Exchange Fellowship 2005

Ca’ Foscari University of Venice, Venice, Italy, PhD Fellowship 2004

Fondazione ENI Enrico Mattei FEEM, Dissertation prize, 2004

Center for European Policy Studies, Brussels, Leonardo EU Scholarship 01/2004–04/2004

University of Copenhagen, Denmark, Erasmus EU Scholarship 09/2001 – 06/2002