The APPG is delighted to welcome Professor Matthew Gorton, Professor Stephen Roper and Dr Barbara Tocco to discuss how to best design a GI scheme, and how the UK can get the most out of its GI scheme as it leaves the EU. This session will enlighten policy makers from the House of Commons and the House of Lords, as well as members of the Department for the Environment, Food and Rural Affairs on how we can do more to improve our GI scheme.

Stephen Roper is Professor of Enterprise at Warwick Business School, Director of the Enterprise Research Centre (www.enterpriseresearch.ac.uk) and Co-Director of the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (https://ncl.ac.uk/nicre/). He is a co-investigator in the ESRC funded Productivity Institute and a member of the Institute’s Executive Committee. Stephen has spent over 30 years’ researching issues related to innovation and innovation policy in the UK and internationally and has published widely in both areas. Over the last two years he has been working on a project on Geographical Indications of Origin policy in the UK funded by the ESRC’s Policy after Brexit programme.

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Matthew Gorton is Professor of Marketing at Newcastle University Business School and Deputy Director of the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE). He co-ordinates the EU H2020 Strength2Food project, which, among various matters, considers the economic, social and environmental impacts of Geographical Indications.  

Matthew has over 20 years of academic research experience in agri-food supply chains, food marketing, small businesses and rural development. He acted as a principal investigator on various EU projects (VALUMICS, INNOGROW, COMPETE, FOCUS BALKANS, SCARLED) and undertook research for Defra, DG AGRI, EU Parliament, World Bank, FAO and OECD. He is an associate editor of the Journal of Agricultural Economics.

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Barbara Tocco is Senior Research Associate in Rural Enterprise at Newcastle University’s Centre for Rural Economy, Project Manager on the EU H2020 Strength2Food project, and Centre Manager at the National Innovation Centre for Rural Enterprise (NICRE).

Barbara is an applied social scientist in sustainable agriculture, food and the rural economy and holds a PhD in Economics. Her research interests relate to rural development challenges with research experience on: regional foods and short food supply chains, competitiveness and sustainability of agri-food supply chains, small rural businesses and development strategies, economic impacts of agricultural policy. She has contributed to various EU funded research projects in this field (STRENGTH2FOOD, VALUMICS, COMPETE, FACTOR MARKETS). Latest work includes action research and innovative pilot actions to stimulate high-quality short food supply chains in North-East England. The results of these activities have been widely disseminated through publications, working papers and presentations at scientific conferences and policy/practitioner workshops.