Dr Debashree De

Biography

Debashree De's expertise spans the operations management subject area:production efficiency and quality, inventory and supply chain management, and digital innovation in operations and analytics with a sustained focus on how production and supply systems mitigate and adapt to climate change. Her work examines operational performance under environmental and resource constraint: lean and sustainability-oriented innovation, circular economy adoption, decarbonisation and carbon neutrality, inventory, backorder and facility-layout decisions, and the deployment of blockchain, artificial intelligence, IoT and Industry 4.0 technologies. A distinct strand of her research addresses regenerative supply chains — production systems designed to restore rather than deplete the natural and social resource base — spanning regenerative agriculture, cotton and textile supply chains from farm to garment, traceability and certification, and regenerative service operations for landscape-scale climate risk. She applies quantitative operations research methods to these problems, including data envelopment analysis, linear programming and network optimisation, discrete-event simulation, structural equation modelling, and multi-criteria decision analysis using AHP, ANP, TOPSIS, DEMATEL, ISM and fuzzy-set approaches, working across food, energy, textile and agricultural systems in both industrialised and developing economies. She is Lecturer in Operations and Supply Chain Management at Essex Business School, University of Essex. She has published fourteen peer-reviewed journal articles attracting over 2,570 citations (h-index 11), including in the British Journal of Management (ABS 4), where she was named Top Cited Author for 2021–22; the International Journal of Production Economics (ABS 3), where her work on circular economy adoption in European SMEs has been cited by the World Economic Forum; Business Strategy and the Environment; the Journal of Environmental Management; Socio-Economic Planning Sciences; and Computational Economics. Her research has also been featured in the Yale Environment Review. She has contributed seven book chapters, including four to Supply Chain Sustainability in SMEs (Routledge, 2022). Debashree has secured over £685,000 in external research funding across fourteen awards, holding Principal Investigator status on ten of them. Her funders span research councils, national academies, government innovation agencies and industry: the British Academy, the Economic and Social Research Council, Research England, Innovate UK, Erasmus+, the International Science Partnerships Fund, and direct industrial sponsors including Wealmoor Ltd and 919Vrede Ltd. The portfolio is deliberately balanced between large flagship programmes and agile seed awards that open new field sites, and between challenge-led international development research and UK-based industrial partnership. Her single largest award as Principal Investigator is a £199,866 British Academy ODA International Science Partnerships Fund programme, Greening White Gold, co-creating regenerative agriculture practices in Togo's cotton sector with Olam Agri and the University of Lomé. As Co-Principal Investigator she leads the knowledge base on a £276,155 Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Wealmoor Ltd on digitally-enabled sustainable supply chain optimisation, and holds a €102,705 share of the €963,089 Erasmus+ TESS programme on techno-economic-societal sustainable development training in Sri Lanka. Together these have built a research programme with active field sites in Togo, Senegal, Nigeria, Sri Lanka, Turkey, India and the UK. Her work is deliberately partner-embedded and policy-facing. She serves as an Expert to the European Commission, drafting policy on the twin digital and green transition of European SMEs, and is a British Academy grant reviewer. Through a British Academy Policy Lab in Togo, she has convened the Ministry of Agriculture, Olam Agri and national cotton producer federations, engaging over 200 farming families with a measured 20% income increase. She has completed more than thirty reviews for journals including Business Strategy and the Environment, the International Journal of Production Economics, Transportation Research Part E and Supply Chain Forum, and has chaired sessions at the EurOMA and British Academy of Management conferences. A Fellow of the Higher Education Academy, she designed and launched the BSc in Operations and Supply Chain Management at Essex and is module leader for nine undergraduate and postgraduate modules, teaching through live industry projects, AI-enabled tools and simulations. She is primary supervisor to three doctoral researchers, has supervised over thirty MSc dissertations, and chairs two PhD supervisory boards. She welcomes enquiries from prospective doctoral candidates working on sustainable and resilient operations, circular economy, and digital transformation in supply chains. Research Grants and Funding Funding by funder Over £685,000 secured across fourteen awards — Principal Investigator on ten. • Innovate UK — £276,155, one award, as Co-Principal Investigator • British Academy — £213,928 across three awards, all as Principal Investigator • Erasmus+ (European Commission) — €102,705, as Co-Principal Investigator • International Science Partnerships Fund — £15,880, as Principal Investigator • Economic and Social Research Council — £13,850, as Principal Investigator • Research England — £9,990, as Principal Investigator • University of Essex internal strategic funds — £20,539 across three awards, all as Principal Investigator • Industry and direct commercial sponsors — £54,808 across three awards As Principal Investigator Ten awards, listed by value. 1. £199,866 — British Academy ODA ISPF (2024–2026). Greening White Gold: regenerative agriculture in Togo's cotton sector. Area: regenerative agriculture, climate resilience, responsible sourcing. Partners: Olam Agri, University of Lomé. 2. £15,880 — ISPF Fund (2024–2025). Growing Toward Regeneration, Togo. Area: regenerative agriculture practice scoping and scorecard development. 3. £13,850 — ESRC Impact Acceleration Account (2022). Reducing single-use plastic through compostable packaging. Area: circular economy, sustainable packaging. 4. £9,990 — Research England Participatory and Strategic Fund (2025–2026). Solar-powered decarbonisation and climate-resilient rice farming, Nigeria. Area: energy transition in agri-food operations. Partner: Olam Agri. 5. £9,800 — University of Essex International Impact Fund (2025–2026). Climate-resilient rice farming, Nigeria. Area: climate-resilient agricultural supply chains. 6. £9,239 — PVC (Research) Strategic Fund (2022–2023). Resilient food-bank supply chains, UK and India. Area: supply chain resilience, humanitarian and third-sector operations. 7. £9,062 — British Academy / Leverhulme Small Research Grant (2024–2026). HRM systems and carbon neutrality in Sri Lankan SMEs through resilience. Area: SME carbon neutrality, organisational resilience. 8. £7,232 — Innovation Fund consultancy, 919Vrede Ltd (2026). Regenerative-cotton commercialisation and farm-to-garment traceability, Senegal. Area: supply chain traceability, sustainable textiles. 9. £5,000 — British Academy ECR Symposium Seed Funding (2026–2027). Regenerative service supply chains for forest-fire mitigation through managed grazing, Turkey. Area: regenerative service operations, ecosystem risk. 10. £1,500 — Executive Dean Fund (2022–2023). As Co-Principal Investigator Over £400,000 including the Erasmus+ share. 11. £276,155 — Innovate UK Knowledge Transfer Partnership with Wealmoor Ltd (2024–2027). Digitally-enabled sustainable supply chain optimisation. Area: digital operations, analytics, agri-food supply chains. 12. €102,705 — Erasmus+ TESS Project (2023–2024), Essex Business School share of €963,089. Techno-Economic-Societal Sustainable Development Training, Sri Lanka. Area: SME sustainability capacity building, circular economy training. 13. £37,576 — Rapid and Agile Project (2022). Digital technologies for resilience in fresh food supply chains. Area: supply chain resilience, digital adoption. 14. £10,000 — Innovation Voucher (2022). Market assessment and feasibility analysis for business growth. Area: operations strategy, industrial consultancy. Funding by research area • Digital and resilient supply chains — approximately £333,000. Innovate UK KTP with Wealmoor, the Rapid and Agile fresh food project, food-bank supply chain resilience across the UK and India, and industrial feasibility work. • Regenerative agriculture and climate-resilient agri-food systems — approximately £248,000. Four countries: Togo (cotton), Senegal (cotton traceability), Nigeria (rice and solar decarbonisation), Turkey (managed grazing and fire mitigation). • SME sustainability and carbon neutrality — £9,062 plus €102,705. Sri Lankan SMEs, spanning both a research grant and a European capacity-building programme. • Circular economy, packaging and waste — approximately £14,000. Compostable packaging and single-use plastic reduction. Recognition and Awards • Top Cited Author 2021–22, British Journal of Management (ABS 4) • Research cited by the World Economic Forum (International Journal of Production Economics, 2022) and featured in the Yale Environment Review (2020) • Appointed Expert, European Commission — twin (digital and green) transition of European SMEs • British Academy grant reviewer • GATE Scholarship (2013–2015); Government of India Meritorious Scholarship (2009–2013) Areas of Expertise • Operations and production efficiency; lean and sustainability-oriented innovation • Quality management and operational performance measurement • Inventory, backorder and facility-layout decision-making • Sustainable and resilient supply chain management • Climate change mitigation and adaptation in supply chains • Decarbonisation, carbon neutrality and renewable energy transition in SMEs and agricultural operations • Regenerative supply chains and regenerative agriculture • Cotton and textile supply chains, from farm to garment • Supply chain traceability, certification and responsible sourcing • Circular economy, waste valorisation and sustainable packaging • Agri-food supply chains and smallholder producer systems • Food loss and waste management in retail supply chains • Digital innovation in operations: blockchain, AI, IoT, digital twins and Industry 4.0 • Operations research and optimisation: DEA, linear programming, network optimisation, discrete-event simulation • Decision and statistical modelling: AHP, ANP, TOPSIS, DEMATEL, ISM, fuzzy-set methods, SEM Postgraduate Research Opportunities Open to supervising doctoral research on climate change mitigation and adaptation in supply chains; regenerative supply chains and regenerative agriculture; cotton, textile and apparel supply chains including traceability and certification; circular economy and carbon neutrality in SMEs; supply chain resilience and risk under disruption; digital technologies and analytics in operations; food loss and waste optimisation; and sustainability performance measurement and efficiency analysis. Primary supervisor of three fully-funded doctoral researchers, working on carbon neutrality and circular economy in Thai SMEs and circular-economy waste optimisation in retail supply chains. Supervisor of over thirty MSc dissertations. Chair of two PhD supervisory boards. Academic Background • PhD, Operations and Information Management (2021), Aston Business School, Aston University. Thesis: Sustainability of SMEs in India and the UK. • Research Student, Industrial Engineering (2016), Indian Institute of Technology (IIT) Kharagpur. Government of India Scholarship. • MEng, Mechanical Engineering — Production and Industrial Engineering (2015), Jadavpur University. Distinction (8.83 CGPA), GATE Scholarship. • BTech, Mechanical Engineering (2013), Uttar Pradesh Government Engineering College. Honours, top 5%. • Fellow of the Higher Education Academy (FHEA).