MARKS-MEDICI presented an ambitious set of scientific and training objectives. It was on-track to far exceeding these objectives when, 6/10ths of the way through the tenure of the project, COVID 19 made international travel and research impossible. Notwithstanding the delays, cancellations, and postponements of an international pandemic, MARKS-MEDICI was able to achieve most of its goals.
The training goals of MARKS-MEDICI included: an exchange of knowledge and methods between the researcher and the supervisor, Teresa da Silva Lopes of the University of York, through weekly supervisions and routine collaboration; the researcher collaborating with international research networks; the researcher making important career and collaboration connections in the UK and continental Europe. All of these goals were accomplished.
Researcher Fredona undertook extensive archival research in the United Kingdom, Italy, and Belgium. He organized two international conferences (one was postponed due to COVID 19), organized and chaired four conference panels, and presented four papers at international conferences (in the UK, Canada, USA, and the Netherlands). Fredona has co-published articles or co-presented research with business historians from four countries (UK, USA, Norway, and Portugal). Fredona has also built important ties with business historians in the Netherlands, Italy, and Japan. He has also taught “International Business Strategy” at the York Management School.
Due to COVID-19, the scientific goals of MARKS-MEDICI were not entirely met. Nonetheless, the outputs produced so far exceed in quantitative terms those originally promised, and have appeared or will appear in top-tier peer reviewed journals. As part of MARKS-MEDICI, the researcher Robert Fredona has published three peer-reviewed articles and has a fourth presently under review, has published four other articles, has another book chapter currently submitted, has guest-edited an issue of the premier business history journal in the world, and is in the process of completing another major journal article with the project sponsor Teresa da Silva Lopes of the University of York.
The publisher and editors of Italy and the Origins of Capitalism, theme issue of Business History Review 94 (Spring 2020), did not permit the inclusion of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie funding statement in this journal, including the two articles we authored. It was agreed that Researcher Fredona would be explicitly named as co-organizer of the related events in the journal and that his Marie Skłodowska-Curie affiliation would be included twice. We made all best efforts to have the statement included, but it proved impossible. The fact that we included it in other publications, including future ones (after the end of the project period), is a sign of our conscientious attempt to follow the grant protocols.
The encyclopedia article in Encyclopedia of Renaissance Philosophy did not allow any acknowledgments whatsoever, as is common with encyclopedia entries.
All other articles include the funding statement. As stated in our report, all future publication will include the funding statement. We confirm this.
