Fiona Wishlade is a Professor and a Director of EPRC. She has an MA (joint Hons) in French with European Institutions from the University of Edinburgh and an LLM in European Law from the University of Strathclyde.
Her research experience is focused on four main areas. First, national regional economic development policies, where she plays a lead role in EPRC’s work for the European Regional Policy Research Consortium, EoRPA , involving comparative research on the regional policies of 30 countries.
Second, she leads EPRC’s work on EU Competition policy and State aid, which explores how competition policy affects the use of subsidies, taxes and other financial instruments to promote economic development. Third, she works extensively on EU Cohesion policy, with a particular interest in the budget negotiations and modelling the impact of Commission proposals and Council negotiations on the size and distribution of Cohesion policy spend.
Last, with colleague Rona Michie, she has developed a new research stream on so-called ‘financial instruments’ – considered by many to offer a more sustainable and cost-effective alternative to grants in promoting economic development.
She has led research in these areas for a large number of government departments and international organisations (including the European Parliament, European Commission, European Investment Bank, OECD), and has published widely on these topics. She is a Fellow of the Academy of Social Sciences and editor of the Policy Debates section of Regional Studies.
