Paola Valbonesi is a Full Professor of Economics since 2018 and the Head of the Department of Economics and Management “Marco Fanno” - University of Padua, since October 2021. She is also a Member of Senato Accademico - University of Padua; and, since 2019, Director of the Italian Observatory on Energy Poverty (OIPE), an informal network hosted by the Interdepartmental Centre “Giorgio Levi Cases” for Energy Economics and Technology, (University of Padua).

She obtained her Master Degree in Political Science at the University of Padova in 1988; and Master of Arts in Economics (M.A.) in 1990, and Ph.D in 1995 in Economics, both at the European University Institute, EUI, Florence.

She served as a Researcher at the University of Verona and Associate Professor at the University of Padova; and Visiting Professor at the Higher School of Economics - National Research University, Russian Federation; Paris School of Economic; Université Paris 1 - Pantheon Sorbonne; University of Nottingham; University of Leicester; University Pompeu Fabra, Barcelona; University of Copenhagen, CIE - Centre of Industrial Economics; University of York; Academy of Science, Department of Economics, Budapest.

Her research interests are mainly in the fields of Industrial Economic/Economic Regulation and Public Economics, with a focus on the design of efficient rules and economic incentives, primarily where government intervention plays a role (i.e., Public-Private Partnerships, Auctions, Procurement, State Aid to Business, Energy Markets and Energy Poverty). Her work has been published in journals such as Review of Economics and Statistics, American Economic Journal: Microeconomics, Games and Economic Behavior, Journal of Public Economics, Journal of Health Economics, Journal of Law, Economics, and Organization, The Energy Journal, Energy Policy, European Journal of Political Economy, Experimental Economics, Industrial and Corporate Change, Scandinavian Journal of Economics, among others.

Since December 2022, she is the Principal Investigator of the Spoke 6 on “Policies for CO2 reduction” at the University of Padova, as a part of the PNRR - Partnership 9, “Growing Resilient, Inclusive and Sustainable” - GRINS, about 350 researchers, organised in 9 Spokes. She recently had the lead of other Research Grants as follows:

- Principal Investigator, Research Unit at the University of Padova of the project “Procuring innovation: Potential, Design and Impact”, 6 researchers involved, PRIN - National Research Funds, 2020-2022;

- Principal Investigator of the research project: “Value for money in public procurement for medical technology and devices”, 7 researchers involved, Progetto di Eccellenza - Fondazione Cariparo, 2018-2021.

She served as a consultant for the European Union - The Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (IPTS) Directorate General Joint Research Centre (DG JRC), the World Bank, the Italian Regulatory Authority for Energy, Gas and Water (ARERA), the Italian Water Committee (Comitato Risorse Idriche), the Veneto Region.