Dr Fabio Battaglia

Italian at heart, I was born and raised in Rome where, in 2015, I earned my bachelor's degree in Political Science and International Relations after spending a semester abroad in the country of IKEA and kanelbullar. Then somehow life took a different path. First, I moved to London, where as people were voting for Brexit, I ironically completed my master's degree program in EU Politics. Then I moved to Edinburgh where I started working towards my doctoral degree. After indulging in local fudge tablets and Shetland mussels (not together, obviously), in 2022 I successfully passed my viva without corrections.

My research is multidisciplinary and multifaceted, encompassing empirical, methodological and theoretical dimensions. It has been published in Social Policy & Administration, Social Indicators Research, Sustainability: Science, Practice and Policy, and the International Journal of Qualitative Methods. Empirically, my main research interest lies in well-being and public policy. In particular, I study whether well-being (or "beyond GDP") metrics are used in policymaking and journalism; how much policymakers and journalists know about GDP and its flaws; and what these groups think about the pursuit of economic growth and post-growth scenarios. Theoretically, another part of my research examines the lack of precision in policy change theory, especially in Kingdon's Multiple Streams Approach. Methodologically, I study how research tools such as media monitoring platforms and AI voice recognition programmes are used - or misused - to help improve how they're used in social science research.