Mario Giampietro was born in Italy in 1953. He graduated in Chemical Engineering (1978) and Biological Sciences (1981) at Universitá La Sapienza, Rome. He has a MS degree in Food System Economics (CEFAS/Universitá La Tuscia) and a PhD in Social Sciences (Wageningen University, NL). Mario was a researcher at Istituto Nazionale di Ricerca per gli Alimenti e la Nutrizione (INRAN) from 1985 to 2007, but pursued most of his research as visiting scientist at leading universities, such as Cornell University (1987-1989 and 1992-1995), Wageningen University (1997), Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (1998-2000), University of Wisconsin, Madison (2002), Penn State University (2005-2006), and Arizona State University (2006-2007). He joined ICREA and UAB in 2007. He has more than 150 scientific publications and is author of several books. He was the coordinator of the Horizon2020 project "Moving Towards Adaptive Governance in Complexity: Informing Nexus Security” (MAGIC) (1996-2020).
Research interests
Mario works on integrated assessment of sustainability issues. Using concepts from complex systems theory, he has developed an innovative scientific approach: Multi-Scale Integrated Analysis of Societal and Ecosystem Metabolism (MuSIASEM). MuSIASEM integrates biophysical and socioeconomic variables across multiple hierarchical scales, thus establishing a link between the metabolism of socio-economic systems and potential constraints of the natural environment. MuSIASEM allows the use of integrated sets of indicators that can be chosen "à la carte" by social actors in relation to multiple criteria of performance. Recent research has focused on the analysis of energy systems and energy scenarios and directives (projects EUFORIE, NETEP, PARTICIPIA), food systems (GLAMUR), the nexus between energy, food, and water in relation to sustainable development goals (MAGIC), post-normal science, and biosemiotics.
Selected publications
- Giampietro M 2023, ‘Reflections on the popularity of the circular bioeconomy concept: the ontological crisis of sustainability science’, Sustainability Science, vol. 18, pp. 749–754.
- Blackstock KL, Waylen KA, Matthews KB, Juarez-Bourke A, Miller DG, Hague A, Wardell-Johnson DH & Giampietro M (2023), 'Implementing post-normal science with or for EU policy actors: using quantitative story-telling', Sustainability Science, 18, 1235–1250.
- Waylen KA, Blackstock KL, Matthews KB, Juarez-Bourke A, Hague A, Wardell-Johnson D, Miller D, Kovacic Z, Völker T, Guimarães Pereira  & Giampietro M (2023), ‘Post-normal science in practice: Reflections from scientific experts working on the European agri-food policy nexus’, Environmental Science & Policy, vol. 141, pp. 158-167.
- Giampietro M (2023), 'Multi-scale integrated analysis of societal and ecosystem metabolism', in: Villamayor-Tomas S and Muradian R (Eds), 'The Barcelona School of Ecological Economics and Political Ecology', Studies in Ecological Economics, vol 8, Springer, Cham.
Selected research activities
Discussion panelist at the European Bioeconomy Scientific Forum 2023, 6-8 September 2023, Vienna (Austria), https://european-bioeconomy-university.eu/ebu-scientific-forum/sessions/