Elisa Calza is a PhD fellow at UNU-MERIT. She holds a MA in Development Economics from the University of Sussex (Falmer, UK), which she obtained after receiving her BSc in Economics and Statistics form Universita’ Commerciale Luigi Bocconi (Milan, Italy).
Before joining UNU-MERIT, Elisa worked for almost 5 years as Research Assistant at the Economic Commission of United Nations for Latin America and the Caribbean (ECLAC) in the Production, Productivity and Management Division (Santiago, Chile). She participated in the realization of various documents on economic development and innovation, structural change, STI and industrial policies, ICT and information society in Latin America and the Caribbean. Between 2012 and 2013, she was also coordinating an IDRC-funded project on governmental open data (Open Data for Development - OD4D). As previous work experience, Elisa was a UN-Volunteer at UNFPA Albania in 2008, after having spent one year as Research Assistant at the Institute for International Politics (ISPI) (Milan, Italy).
Her current research interests focus on innovation and entrepreneurship in developing countries. Her doctoral thesis empirically investigates the role and features of innovation and standard certifications on firm-level performance in Viet Nam.