Rosa M Fernandez Martin

Biography

Dr Rosa M. Fernandez Martin is an applied economist specialised in sustainability related topics, including renewable energies economics and policies, food security and food sustainability, education for sustainable development, or corporate social responsibility, among others. She has wide teaching and research experience in Economics, having worked at UNED (Spain), the University of Birmingham and the University of Chester, where she was Programme Leader in Economics and Deputy Head of Department in Social and Political Science. She joined Keele Business School in June 2023 from the University of Warwick, where she was Associate Professor in Global Sustainable Development in charge of distance learning provision.

She has published numerous articles and book chapters in her main areas of research expertise and has taught a wide range of modules in Economics both at undergraduate and graduate levels (including micro and macroeconomics, economic thought, international trade, public sector economics and development economics), with specialisation in Environmental Economics. She is associate editor of several international peer reviewed journals and regular reviewer for transdomain projects for the COST initiative of the European Commission.

At Keele, she is currently the PGR Lead and the Sustainability lead of the Business School, where she is also the Programme Director of the MA and MSc Economics. She was elected as a member of Senate in 2025, and is part of the University-wide SDG Impact Committee.

Research and scholarship

Dr Fernandez Martin research expertise covers transdisciplinary approaches including Economics, Politics, International Relations and Business, in topics related to environmental and energy economics, green growth and green finance, small and medium enterprises, corporate social responsibility and European integration.

Dr Fernandez Martin is interested in supervising PhD students in the following areas (broadly defined):

• Decarbonisation and net zero strategies (including renewable energy incentives and barriers).
• Community engagement in sustainability transitions.
• Food security and food sustainability.
• Businesses role in sustainability transformations (including the Quintuple Helix Innovation Model)

Other related topics may be considered.

PhD students supervised to completion:
Dr Monica Savic-Jabrow (Corporate Social Responsibility in the UK banking industry)

Current PhD Supervision (main supervisor):

• Ruth Okhah (Digital Financial Inclusion, Institutional Quality and Socio-economic Development)
• Btihal Laarmati (The impact of non-tariff barriers on trade)
• Ryan Langley (Financial viability of community farming)
• Madhushani Ekanayake Mudiyanselage (Critical success factors for economic sustainability of social supermarkets in the UK)

Forthcoming supervision:

• Amanda Pethiyagoda (Past, present and future of food sustainability in Staffordshire)

Teaching

• ECO-10037 Introductory Macroeconomic and Microeconomic Principles
• ECO-10039 Sustainability and the Global Economy
• ECO-20061 Environmental Economics
• ECO-40028 Advanced Economic Models and Applications
• ECO-40026 Climate crisis, energy and the world economy
• MAN-40371 Sustainability Measuring and Reporting
• MAN-40192 Research Methods

Further information

Dr Fernandez Martin is Senior Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, a certified Mental Health First Aider and a Carbon Literacy Certified Facilitator, delivering training for both staff and students. She is also part of the teaching team of the Bootcamp: Leadership Skills for a Green Economy

She was awarded the Keele Environmental Sustainability Award in 2024.

Collaborations and grants awards

Dr Fernandez Martin is the convenor of the UACES funded research network (2020-2023) 'The role of Europe in Global Challenges: Climate change and Sustainable Development', co-chaired with Prof. Thomas Hoerber (ESSCA, France) and Dr. Jonas Schoenefeld (Institute for Housing and Sustainability, Germany).

She received QR and Council funding in 2025 to complete research on ‘Collaborating on climate policy implementation at local level’.

She was awarded a North West Social Sciences DTP CASE Studentship in 2026 for the project ‘Past, present and future of food sustainability in Staffordshire’, project that she will begin supervising in September-October 2026.