Profile
Qingren Chen is a Postdoctoral Research Associate working with Dr. Carlo Inverardi-Ferri on the ERC-funded project "Illicit Labour," which examines global production networks, labour regimes, and informality in the photovoltaic industry, with a focus on making clean energy affordable and accessible for all. Drawing on cultural political economy and evolutionary economic geography theories, his current research investigates how China's photovoltaic industry evolved from a global manufacturing subcontractor in the early 2000s to its current position as the world's leading solar power nation. By mapping the evolutionary trajectory of China's photovoltaic industry, this work establishes a foundation for understanding labour conditions and informality within the sector.
Research
Research Interests:
Qingren completed his PhD in Geography at Durham University, where his doctoral thesis investigate the evolution of China's logistics industry from an internalised structure under the planned economy to the current multi-tiered outsourcing system within a market economy. His research revealed that existing firm-centric economic geography frameworks inadequately explain economic phenomena, especially in transition economies. By emphasising institutional approach, personal relationships, and embeddedness concept, his work demonstrates how individual actors' decisions and their interactions significantly shape regional industrial development paths, highlighting the necessary for attention to individual agency in economic geography research.
Beyond his focus on supply chains, industrial evolution, institutional studies, and cultural political economy, he maintains strong research interests in geopolitics and cultural political ecology, particularly within the renewable energy sector.