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Biography
Professor of Law and Development and Director of the Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG)
Expertise Summary
Professor Annamaria La Chimia read Law at the University of Rome La Sapienza and moved to England for her graduate studies. She completed an LLM in International Economic Law (2002) and a PhD (2006) at the School of Law, University of Nottingham.
Professor La Chimia joined the School of Law as a lecturer in September 2006 and was promoted to Associate Professor in 2014 and full Professor in 2019. Since 2020, she has been the Director of the Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG), a world-leading centre of research and teaching on Public Procurement Law and Policy. Professor La Chimia is also a Research Fellow at Stellenbosch University (from January 2019)
Professor La Chimia is a member of the Steering Committee of the International Economic Law Collective https://warwick.ac.uk/fac/soc/law/research/centres/globe/ielcollective/ and a founding member of the European Association on Public-Private Partnership (EAPPP). She is also a member of the Transatlantic Food Assistance Dialogue (TAFAD) and the founding director of the Humanitarian and Development Procurement Unit and co-founder and co-director (with Georgopolou) of the Procurement and Human Rights Unit of the Public Procurement Research Group (PPRG).
At Nottingham, Professor La Chimia is also the Director of the School mentoring scheme and the convener for the LLM Specialism in Law and Development. From 2017 to 2021, she acted as Equality Officer and Chair of the Equality and Diversity Committee for the School of Law, University of Nottingham (under her leadership, the school obtained the first Athena Swan Award for equality and diversity). Until 2020 she led the UoN Rights, Justice and Global Challenges Interdisciplinary Research Cluster.
At Nottingham she teaches a range of modules on public procurement law and international development law at both UG, PG, and Executive levels. In the past she has also taught EU law, UK Public Law and WTO law.
Professor La Chimia has recently acted as an expert consultant for the World Bank on gender and procurement and food procurement. Her work resulted in the publication in 2022 of a World Bank Practice Note and Toolkit on mainstreaming gender equality in public procurement and, in 2024, a report on gender-responsive procurement with a spotlight on emergencies. Professor La Chimia was nominated Special Procurement Advisor for the EU External Mission in Somalia (EUCAP Somalia, in 2020), and acted as an expert consultant for numerous international organizations and governments, including the German Agency for International Cooperation (GIZ), the UK Independent Commission for Aid Impact (ICAI), the European Commission (DG External Relations and Internal Market), the NGO ActionAid, the Commonwealth Secretariat, and OECD/SIGMA, the Italian Ministry of Education, the World Bank.
Professor La Chimia has taught at various international institutions, including the Masters Degree Program on Human Development and Food Security at the Universita' degli Studi di Roma Tre (2004-2015), the Masters Degree in Public Administration at the University of Rome Tre (2006 and 2008); the Masters Degree on Procurement at the Stellenbosch University (2011) and at the International Master on Procurement at the Universita' Tor Vergata (2017). She was a Visiting Professor at the University LUISS Guido Carli of Rome (2010), at the University Statale of Milan (2015, and 2019, suspended due to COVID), at the University of Copenhagen, at the Danish Institute for Human Rights (2017) and at the University of Rome la Sapienza (2019, postponed to 2020 due to COVID).
Professor La Chimia's main research interests lie in EU and WTO/GPA procurement law, International Development, Public and Administrative Law, International Economic Law, and European Law. Her work has been sponsored by a range of institutions and she has received internal and external funding as both Principal Investigator and Co-I: in 2019 she was awarded a BA-Levehulme Trust grant (as Principal Investigator) to conduct research on food procurement for schools and the right to food together with researchers from La Sapienza of Rome; in 2017 she was the recipient of a major AHRC-GCRF grant as Co-Investigator -the Rising from the Depths project, worth over 2-million pounds; in 2016 she received funding as Principal Investigator by the BA-Levehulme Trust to conduct research on procurement and Human Rights; in 2017 she was sponsored by the Nottingham Governance RPA as Principal Investigator to conduct research on discretion and the use of flexible procedures within the new EU procurement Directives, in 2016 she participated as Co-I in a project on aid an migration sponsored by the Rights and Justice RPA (with Daria Davitti); and in 2009 she received funding by the British Academy, again as PI, to carry out a comparative study of EU and USA food aid policies. In 2010 Professor La Chimia was awarded the prize "premio professionalita' 'Rocca D'Oro' Europa Leader," this prize is awarded under the patronage of the President of the Republic of Italy and is bestowed to academics, public officials and artists who excel in their field in Italy and abroad.
Prior to joining the School of Law, Professor La Chimia worked as a lawyer in Italy, where she qualified as a Barrister and Solicitor in 2002. She became a member of the Italian Bar and acted as a counselor in front of the Italian Administrative Court, the Employment Tribunal, and the High Court.
Professor La Chimia is the author of numerous international publications spanning the fields of EU and international procurment law, and international development. She is the author of over fifty publications including Tied Aid within the Framework of EU and WTO Law: the Imperative for Change (Hart 2013) the leading monograph on tied aid, and has written extensively on procurement law within the EU and International economic law, development procurement, food aid and related topics publishing in prestigious edited collections and refereed journals such as the International and Comparative Law Quarterly, The European Law Review, the Public Procurement Law Review, the Journal of International Economic Law, the Trade Law and Development Journal, and the Irish Yearbook of International Law. Her most recent publications are Public Procurement Regulation in (a) Crisis: Global lessons from the COVID-19 pandemic (Hart, November 2021) with Arrowsmith, Butler and Yukins; Il Procurement delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni: tra Innovazione e Sostenibilità (with Fiorentino L) published by Il Mulino and Public Procurement and Aid Effectiveness: a Roadmap under Construction (with Peter Trepte) published by Hart in 2019,
you can find her on LinkdIn at
linkedin.com/in/annamaria-la-chimia-ba589413a
Professor Annamaria La Chimia
Laurea ("La Sapienza di Roma", Italy), LLM and PhD (Nottingham), Qualified Advocate -Barrister and Solicitor- (Italy) Director PPRG (Nottingham), founding member of EAPPP, member of TAFAD and member of IEL Collective.
Professor of Law and Development and Director PPRG
Teaching Summary
Professor La Chimia teaches the following modules:
UG:
Law and Development: Approaches, Actors and issues
in the past she has taught: EU Law, UK Public Law
LLM:
Law, Development and the International Community
in the past she has taught: WTO Law, EU External Relations Law
Executive LLM on procurement Law and Policy:
Procurement and Development
WTO/GPA procurement
Research Summary
Her main research interests lie within the area of European Law (especially External Relations, Public Procurement, and Internal Market) as well as International Trade Law and Development policies.
She has done extensive research on tied aid policies in the context of EU law and international trade law. She is currently researching on food aid and food security, rural development, and agricultural trade liberalization within the context of the WTO. She is also interested in regional integration, developing countries' procurement policies, aid harmonization, and the development of the European Partnership Agreements (EPAS).
Recent Publications
SUE ARROWSMITH, LUKE R BUTLER, ANNAMARIA LA CHIMIA and CHRISTOPHER R YUKINS, eds., 2021. Public Procurement Regulation in (a) Crisis?: Global Lessons from the COVID-19 Pandemic Hart.
FIORENTINO L and LA CHIMIA A, eds., 2021. Il Procurement delle Pubbliche Amministrazioni: tra Innovazione e Sostenibilità. il Mulino.
A LA CHIMIA, 2021. Article 25. In: A SANCHEZ-GRAELLS and CARANTA R, eds., Commentary to the Public Procurement Directives