Anabel Marin is a Research Fellow and leads the Business, Markets and the State Cluster at IDS. She is also the Director at Bioleft, an open-source initiative for seed breeding.

Anabel is interested in the linkages between business, policies, civil society and sustainable development. She brings more than 20 years’ experience in research, support in the design and implementation of policies (science and technology, innovation, trade, and environmental) and activism, including a specialism in the development of media products for sustainable development (see also here and here). Her multidisciplinary work is focused on the transformation and transitions towards economic, social, and environmental sustainability in activities related to common resources; open and collaborative forms of production and innovation; environmental justice and civil society participation; sustainable structural change and the importance of new technologies and new knowledge for development.

Anabel is currently involved in several projects including:

Ongoing:

• Leading – ‘Innovation and Complementary Capabilities for Vaccines’, collaborating with Japanese, Argentinean, German, and Indian researchers to examine differential innovation, political and regulatory capabilities for vaccines across firms and countries (funded by ESRC).
• Leading – ‘The Justice Footprint of Mineral Imports in UK Value Chains‘. This project seeks to give a justice dimension to the concept of ‘inclusive trade policy’ by uncovering a usually hidden link between trade, social and environmental conflicts and justice for the UK.
• Leading – Drivers of responsible business conduct in low- and middle-income countries: What do we know from existing evidence from research and practice? This project aims to support the FCDO in designing a new responsible and inclusive business programme, informing the development of the programme’s theory of change.
• Collaborating – ‘Breeding for coffee and cocoa root resilience in low input farming systems based on improved rootstocks (BOLERO)’. The BOLERO  Project proposes to create resilient rootstock varieties for fruit tree crops to cope with climate change threats (funded by UKRI – Innovate UK).
• Collaborating – Covid Collective Research Platform which offers a rapid social science research response to inform decision-making on some of the most pressing Covid-19 related development challenges. If want to know about this platform, visit the Covid Collective website here.
• Collaborating – ‘Revisioning territorial rights in Brazil in the face of resource extraction‘. This project focusses on supporting those adversely affected by mineral resource extraction in Brazil’s southeastern Minas Gerais state.
• Collaborating – Background paper for FAO on Democratising Science, Technology and Innovation in Agrifood Systems. Anabel is part of the research team collaborating to develop a pivotal background paper for FAO Office of Innovation (OIN) 2025 flagship report, titled ‘Accelerating Innovation in Agrifood Systems: Achieving more inclusive, Resilient, Efficient and Sustainable Outcomes’. This paper will explore the existing paradigms within agrifood systems and examine how democratising science, technology and innovation (STI) processes can drive positive transformation.

Recently concluded:

• ‘Transitions in the mining sector in Chile’, examining the role of business, policies, and civil society in sustainable transitions in the mining sector in Chile (funded by the Interamerican Development Bank).
• ‘Foresight for new collaborative platforms to support LMIC science systems’, working with partners in Argentina and South Africa to conduct foresight workshops to explore how new global models of resource mobilisation and new forms of collaboration between international funding agencies and science systems in low- and middle-income countries can generate the transformative knowledge required to achieve the SDGs (funded by IDRC).

Prior to joining IDS, Anabel was the director of CENIT in Argentina and led a range of international research and action projects in Latin America. Some of her recent projects include:

• ‘Diverse strategies, capacities and challenges for exporting differentiated goods from the agri-food sector in Latin America and the Caribbean: reflections based on a selected group of success stories from Argentina’ (2019-2020); ‘Innovation and competitiveness in mining value chains: the cases of copper and gold in Argentina and Brazil’ (2018-2019), both funded by the Interamerican Development Bank.
• ‘Bioleft: a community lab that supports open and collaborative forms of innovation for seeds’ (2016-2020) funded by Conservation, Health and Food Foundation.
• ‘Transformative pathways to sustainability: Learning across disciplines, contexts and cultures’ (2015-2018), funded by the International Science Council.

Anabel convenes the Master’s course ‘Competing in the Green Economy’ as part of IDS’s  Master’s Programmes.  Finally, she is an Associate Editor of the Innovation and Development journal.

Media coverage:

• Anabel was a key note speaker in the IST 2024 – 15th International Sustainability Transitions Conference in Oslo. Find more information and a recording of her presentation here.
• In the Spanish article titled No es tan sencillo marginar a las disidencias, Anabel analyses how the social rejection of government measures in favour of natural resource activities in Argentina, as in other countries in the region, shows that it is necessary to change the focus of investment policies in this area.
• She recently delivered a presentation in Spanish about Making green growth possible: new policy approaches for justice and feasibility.
• In the videos below (in Spanish and Spanish with English subtitles), Anabel discusses the issue of critical minerals and development.

• In the following interview in Spanish, Anabel addresses different aspects of the Argentine economy.

Recent Journal Article:

Anabel recently published a new Journal Article. This paper aims at contributing to better comprehend the opportunities for innovation in the mining sector that are leveraged by local knowledge-intensive mining suppliers (KIMS) in developing mineral-rich countries. Click here for more details.