Padmashree Gehl Sampath
Dr. Padmashree Gehl Sampath is a well-known international expert on innovation and development issues, currently working at the United Nations Conference on Trade and Development (UNCTAD) in Geneva. Prior to this, she worked for several years as a Researcher at the United Nations University-MERIT (2002-2007) and then as a Lecturer on International Development and Innovation at the Open University, UK (2007-2008). Having received awards from the Rockefeller Foundation and the Rotary International in India for Outstanding Achievements in 2010, she continues to be a Policy Advisor at the Institute for International and European Environmental Policy (ECOLOGIC), Berlin since 2005 and continues to be a Research Fellow at United Nations University-MERIT. She has a research specialization in innovation and development economics, and has contributed extensively to international and regional debates on issues of innovation, technology and development issues through research results from the various projects that she has led in the field. She has worked extensively in Asian and Sub-Saharan African countries and most of her projects engage in issues of innovation in various sectors, especially health, technology transfer and development.
Dr. Gehl Sampath has consulted various UN organisations, including the World Health Organisation, UNCTAD, UNHABITAT, the GFATM, the European Commission, the DFID, the African Technology Policy Studies Network and the German Government. She has an extensive publications record, including several journal publications, chapters in books and four published books. Apart from an already published book in 2005 (Regulating Bioprospecting, UNU Press), her recent publications include Reconfiguring Global Health Innovation (Routledge Publishing, 2010), Latecomer Development: Innovation and Knowledge for Economic Catch Up (with Banji Oyeyinka, Routledge Publishing, 2010) and The Gene Revolution and Global Food Security (with Banji Oyeyinka, Palgrave Macmillan, 2009).