TEAM

Dr.  Leonhard K. Lades

Leonhard is an EPA Research Fellow in Behavioural Economics with EnvEcon, an Adjunct Research Fellow at UCD, and a member of the Centre for Behavioural Sciences at UCD Geary. He is the lead researcher on the BEAST project.

Leonhard obtained his Diploma (~MSc) in Economics from the University of Bonn and completed his PhD from the Friedrich-Schiller-University, Jena at the Max Planck Institute of Economics and the Graduate School Human Behaviour in Social and Economic Change in Jena, Germany. He did postdocs at the Max Planck Institute in Jena and at the Behavioural Science Centre in Stirling and was a tenured lecturer in economics at the University of Stirling. He has published in academic journals such as Economics Letters, the Journal of Behavioral Decision Making, the Journal of Economic Psychology, the Journal of Evolutionary Economics, and Kyklos.

Leonhard is a behavioural scientist with broad expertise in the areas of economic psychology and behavioural economics. His research focuses on time preferences, temptation and self-control in everyday life, and soft paternalism. He develops and applies day reconstruction diary studies to measure decision making biases in everyday life. For more information, visit my webpage.

Dr. J. Andrew Kelly

Andrew completed a M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2003) in the fields of economics and environmental policy.

After graduated with honours in Economics and English from UCD and Coimbra in 1999. At postgraduate level he went on to complete a M.Sc. (2000) and Ph.D. (2003) in the fields of economics and environmental policy, before completing two post doctoral positions. The first of these focusing on project building, project management and funding proposal development. The second on environmental policy and integrated modelling of climate and air pollution. In 2007 he formed EnvEcon, as a specialised policy and strategy research unit, with Professor Peter Clinch. In this role Andrew has led numerous private and public projects across multiple sectors and thematic issues, as well as leading the Integrated Modelling Project Ireland which developed and deployed a number of key analytical capacities for integrated decision support with regard to international and irish environmental policy. Andrew is also currently an active member of the UNECE Task Force on Integrated Assessment Modelling, serves as an external advisory panel member to the CUPESSE project on youth unemployment in Europe, and has worked with a number of international bodies and agencies such as the World Bank and Sida in regard to economic development, policy analysis, program evaluation and capacity building. Andrew has a particular interest in the area of policy development, with a skillset incorporating the requisite capacities for analysis, negotiation, communication and regulation. In a more specialised contrext Andrew offers experience in a number of thematic areas such as climate, air, resource management and economics, and across all economic sectors. Andrew also offers valuable skills in the general areas of management, integrated analysis, strategy, data management and the growing role of ICT in research and policy development.

Prof. J. Peter Clinch

Professor Peter Clinch has first class honours BA and MA degrees in economics as well as a PhD and a Diploma in environmental impact assessment. He is a graduate of the Advanced Management Program at Harvard Business School. In 2003, he was appointed to the Jean Monnet Professorship (Economic Integration/Environmental Policy) at University College Dublin (UCD). He also holds the Chair of Public Policy at UCD and served until recently as Vice President of the University where, as a member of the Senior Management Team, he had particular responsibility for innovation, commercialisation, new venture development and corporate partnerships. Peter has also worked for, or been a consultant to, the World Bank in Washington D.C., the OECD and has advised several national governments and their agencies. Peter has held visiting positions or been an invited speaker at such institutions as the University of California Berkeley, University of California, San Diego, the University of Southern California and the John F Kennedy School of Government at Harvard University.

Between 2008 and 2011 Peter served as Special Adviser to the Taoiseach (Prime Minister of Ireland) based at Government Buildings. During this time, he was responsible for advising on economic, enterprise and environmental policy at the height of the global economic and financial crisis. In addition to providing advice in all policy areas, Peter was instrumental in developing a medium-term framework for economic growth which included drafting ‘Building Ireland’s Smart Economy: A Framework for Sustainable Economic Renewal’ published by the Government in December 2008. This set out five Action Areas to revive productivity growth and restructure the Irish economy in the aftermath of the international recession and a domestic property boom.

Amongst many policy initiatives to position Ireland as a Global Innovation Hub, Peter led the establishment of the Innovation Taskforce which reported in March 2010. This is a key input into Irish enterprise policy to 2020. He was also a strong advocate for the prioritisation of enterprise funding in the review of capital spending. Peter also led the development of Innovation Fund Ireland, a €500m venture fund which has attracted top tier VCs to Ireland. Peter’s high-level experience of working in government includes working in partnership with senior civil servants as well as some of the leading companies in the world. In addition to serving, inter alia, Cabinet Committees on Economic Renewal, Climate Change and Energy Security, and Science, Technology and Innovation, he has participated in bilaterals between the Taoiseach and Ministers and has been a member of Irish Government delegations to the European Council, the UN General Assembly, World Economic Forum (Davos), Asia Europe (and the Americas) Summits, a series of overseas trade missions, as well as the Prime Ministerial delegations to meet Heads of State including US President Obama and Chinese Premier Wen.

Peter has extensive experience in high-level negotiations including participating in Irish government meetings with the global CEOs/Presidents of companies such as Intel, Coca Cola, IBM, BNY Mellon, Bank of America, Goldman Sachs, HP, and Pfizer. He also has considerable experience of working with the SME sector and across the public sector.

Peter’s areas of expertise include: economic growth, productivity and innovation policy; environmental and resource economics; enterprise policy; sustainability and quality of life; behavioural economics; policy analysis; market-based instruments; cost-benefit analysis and environmental valuation; economics of land use and land markets; energy economics and policy. Professor Clinch is author of over 100 publications including books, book chapters, international journal articles and conference proceedings and another 100 or so conference papers, working papers, reports and other publications. In 2007 he co-founded (with Dr Andrew Kelly) EnvEcon Ltd for which he won a NovaUCD Entrepreneurship Award. In 2013 Peter was appointed to the National Competitiveness Council which reports to the Taoiseach (Irish Prime Minister) on key competitiveness issues facing the Irish economy and offers recommendations on policy actions required to enhance Ireland’s competitive position.