Faculty

Massimo Florio is Professor of Public Economics at the Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods at University of Milan and CSIL Senior Advisor. He is an expert in the field of cost-benefit analysis as well as in the evaluation of EU policies, programmes and projects. He has been involved in several assignments for the European Commission (mainly DG REGIO), the European Parliament, the European Investment Bank, the OECD, the World Bank and other institutions (e.g. CERN, ASI, ESA, etc.). His main research interests are applied welfare economics, cost-benefit analysis, industrial and regional policies, infrastructure and growth, privatisation, public enterprise, and research infrastructures’ socioeconomic impact. 
Since its first edition in 2011, he has been the Scientific Director of the Milan Summer School on cost-benefit analysis. 
His latest publications include “The Privatisation of Knowledge: A New Policy Agenda for Health, Energy, and Data Governance”, published by Routledge (2023) and “Investing in Science: Social Cost-Benefit Analysis of Research Infrastructures”, edited by MIT press (2019). 
More details on his expertise and publications are available at http://www.massimoflorio.com

Silvia Vignetti is a CBA expert with a longstanding experience in project appraisal. She co-authored the last three editions of the CBA Guide prepared on behalf of the DG REGIO, and recently she has been supporting JASPERS in the review of major projects in the 2014-2020 MFF by providing an assessment of their economic and financial aspects.
Silvia led the ex-post evaluations – including the performance of CBA - assessing the long-term contribution of selected major projects co-financed by ERDF and Cohesion Fund during the 2000-2006 and 2007-2013 programming periods in the fields of environment and transport, and has broad expertise developing CBA methodological frameworks in the RDI sector and research infrastructures. She has extensive training experience in CBA for civil servants and practitioners in Italy and abroad (e.g. Malta, Lithuania, Romania, Croatia, Slovenia, North Macedonia, Ghana) and is one of the principal lecturers of the Milan Summer School on CBA of Investment Projects, annually organised by CSIL since 2011.
Silvia holds a Degree in Economics from Bocconi University in Milan.

Chiara Pancotti is an expert in financial, socioeconomic and risk analyses of infrastructural projects. She boasts longstanding experience in projects appraisal and ex-post evaluations assessing the long-term contribution of projects, especially in the environmental, transport, cultural and RDI fields. 
She was part of the team in charge of developing the last edition of the DG REGIO Guide, and in 2021, she reviewed the General Principles section of the European Commission’s Economic Appraisal Vademecum 2021-2027. With Prof. Massimo Florio, she co-authored the Second edition of the book “Applied Welfare Economic – Cost-Benefit Analysis of Projects and Policies” (Routledge). She is also the author of several reports and papers on CBA, including research infrastructures. 
Chiara has delivered training in the field of CBA to EU officials and international and national audiences in various countries, including Malta, Lithuania, Slovenia, Luxembourg, the Republic of North Macedonia and Indonesia.
Chiara has been an adjunct Professor of Applied Welfare Economics and Cost-Benefit Analysis at the University of Milan. She holds an MSc in Economics from Bicocca University in Milan.

Jessica Catalano specialises in financial, economic and risk analyses of infrastructural projects, especially in the transport, environment, health and RDI fields. She co-authored the last edition of the CBA Guide prepared on behalf of the DG REGIO; reviewed several application forms of Italian major projects asking for EU co-financing; contributed to several ex-post evaluations – including ex-post CBA - of projects co-financed by ESI funds. Recently, Jessica acted as a quality reviewer of the Cost-benefit Analysis of projects applying for financing from the Connecting Europe Facility programme on behalf of INEA. In the framework of a technical assistance project to the European Commission‘s DG REGIO, she has also supported the preparation of quick-appraisal reports assessing the quality of several CBAs of projects asking for co-funding under ESI Funds. Over recent years, she has gained experience with the socioeconomic impact assessments of research infrastructures (e.g., Elixir, Diamond, LHC and HI-Lumi, ALBA synchrotrons, FCC). She is currently leading the development of a CBA framework tailored to open science practices.
Jessica delivered teaching assignments on the evaluation of health programmes and policies, including CBA, at the University of Milan, where she has also been an Adjunct Professor of Regional Economics and Policy and Cost-Benefit Analysis.
She holds an MSc degree in Political Science and a Master’s degree in planning, assessment and selection of Public Investments from the University of Naples.

Erica Delugas joined CSIL in 2022 and conducts applied research in industrial, research and innovation policies, and small business economics. She carries out literature and documentary reviews, statistics and econometric analysis.
Erica is currently involved in the Horizon Europe project PathOS, contributing to developing a CBA framework tailored to open science practices and in the H2020 FCCIS project, developing a model for the socioeconomic impact of the CERN Future Circular Collider. She is researching human capital and education activities at CERN, including the estimation of salary premiums employing a Mincerian model and the willingness-to-pay with parametric Double Bounded Contingent Valuation and Spike models.
She has previous experience as a data manager analysing the private Italian labour market, focusing on wage differentials and inequalities. She also has experience as a teaching and research assistant in econometrics and public economics. Her research interests focus on applied welfare economics.
Erica holds a PhD in Economics and Business and an MSc in Economics (Public Economics track) from Cagliari University (Italy).

Matteo Pedralli is a Senior Researcher at CSIL, where he has been working on applied research in regional development and public investment management since 2018. He is proficient in the principles and methods of cost-benefit analysis and its application to infrastructural/investment projects. He carried out various CBA of investment projects, particularly within the Ex post evaluation of major projects supported by the European Regional Development Fund and Cohesion Fund between 2000 and 2013 - Lot 2 Environment, on behalf of DG REGIO. He is also experienced in analysing directives and regulations and assessing their economic impacts. Matteo has been a tutor of a Cost-Benefit Analysis course at the University of Milan (Department of Economics, Management and Quantitative Methods) and at the Milan Summer School Cost-Benefit Analysis of investment projects.
Matteo completed an MSc in Government Sciences at the University of Turin and a postgraduate Master's in European Public Policy Analysis at the College of Europe (Belgium).

Francesca Ardizzon joined CSIL in 2019 and is mainly involved in EU Cohesion Policy studies. She has strong expertise in qualitative and quantitative research techniques and policy evaluation. She is proficient in Cost-Benefit Analysis, particularly in the transport sector. She is currently working on a study to calculate the Social Discount Rate for Italy, and recently contributed to a feasibility study of the ring road around Livorno. Previously, she supported Rete Ferroviaria Italiana, the company of the National Railway Group, in preparing the financial and economic analysis of the “Palermo rail ring completion project” and the CBA of the doubling of the Palermo-Carini railway line. 
She has previous experience at the European Commission, where, as an intern, she supported the evaluation team in charge of assessing evaluation plans and reports of national state aid schemes. 
She holds a double Master’s Degree in Economics and Public Finance from the University of Piemonte Orientale (Italy) and Rennes 1 (France).

Louis Colnot joined CSIL in 2017 as a policy analyst and evaluator specialised in the field of regional and local development, research, and innovation policies. At CSIL, he contributes to different types of studies and evaluations and covers several contexts and thematic areas, as demonstrated by his involvement in a wide range of consultancy and research projects (e.g., on Cohesion Policy, ICT and innovation, industry, R&D, and SME policy). Recently, he gained expertise in the socio-economic analysis of large-scale scientific infrastructures, especially in high-energy physics. Indeed, he contributed to a H2020 project led by the CERN on the evaluation of the Future Circular Collider (FCC). In this framework, he performed a detailed analysis of the expected scientific production of this project, using sentiment analysis, scientometrics/bibliometrics, findings valued and integrated into a CBA analysis. He also evaluated the potential benefits of the FCC in terms of online cultural benefits, through an analysis of the value of social media / online activity linked to the project. Before joining CSIL, Louis provided consultancy advice to the French local public sector and their partners. 
Louis holds a multidisciplinary Master’s Degree from Sciences Po Paris, completed by an exchange year at the Georgia Institute of Technology (USA) where he studied economic and science policy. 

Enrico Maria Bernardis is Tplan Consulting’s director and, since 2016, one of the lecturers of the Milan Summer School on Cost-Benefit Analysis. Enrico has multi-sector and multi-country experience in transport infrastructure and policy appraisal. He has acted as a CBA expert for the development or review of more than 50 Cost-Benefit Analyses for transport projects in different European Countries (France, Greece, Hungary, Italy, Portugal, Spain, Turkey, United Kingdom) and transport modes (railways, metro and urban transport systems, ports and hinterland connections, road and airports). Enrico has good knowledge of a variety of national and international guidance and tools on economic appraisal for transport, such as the 2014 CBA Guide (EU, DG REGIO), Blue Book (EU, JASPERS), and EIB Railpag (EU, EIB), the Notes on the Economic Evaluation of Transport Projects, 2005 (World Bank) and Treasury’s Green Book and WebTAG/Tuba (UK). INEA has appointed him as an evaluator of the CBAs included in the applications for funding under the Connecting Europe Facility. Enrico provided training activities on CBA and transport project evaluations for public administrations in Italy, Macedonia and Slovenia.

Davide Sartori is a project economist at the European Investment Bank, where he is responsible for the economic appraisal of energy efficiency projects and programmes supported by the Bank within its Energy lending policy. He is the main author of the Economic Appraisal Vademecum, published by the European Commission in 2021. Between 2016 and 2020, he worked under the JASPERS mandate as a Cost-benefit Analysis specialist, supporting ESI Funds beneficiaries in preparing the financial, economic and risk analyses of infrastructure investment projects applying for EU co-financing. He also helped EU Member States to design and develop cost-benefit analysis training programmes. In his previous position at CSIL, he was the lead author of the last edition of the EC Guide to Cost-benefit Analysis of Investment Projects (2014). 
Davide is visiting lecturer at EIPA, the European Institute of Public Administration, and the Milan Summer School on CBA.

Valentina Morretta is an Assistant Professor in Public Economics at the University of Milan - Department of Economics, Management, and Quantitative Methods (DEMM). She has extensive experience in research and analysis in different socio-economic disciplines, including the evaluation of the socio-economic impact of research and innovation policies. She has participated in several international projects, including cost-benefit analysis of Large Hadron Collider at Cern and cost-benefit analysis of public policies in the space industry. Before starting her career in academia, she gained work experience in the field of finance and local development in different countries, including Ireland, Italy, Kosovo and the UK. Her main research interests focus on the evaluation of innovation policies, cost-benefit analysis, local development and firm productivity.
Valentina holds an MSc in Business Economics from the University of Palermo, a Master in International Cooperation and Development from the Institute of International Political Studies (ISPI) of Milan and a PhD in regional economics from the Centre for Economic and Enterprise Development Research of the Middlesex University (CEEDR).