About
Valentina holds a PhD in European Studies from the European Institute at the London School of Economics and a master’s degree in economics from Lund University, Sweden. She is currently an Associate Editor of the International Journal of Care and Caring.
Valentina's research focuses on adult social care policy and practice, spanning three interconnected areas. She has a longstanding interest in unpaid carers research, exploring patterns of unpaid care provision, support for unpaid carers and what combinations of support improve carers' health, wellbeing, and ability to remain in employment. She also researches the role of technology and digital innovation in adult social care, including the evaluation of assistive and care technologies and how new tools can be adopted, scaled, and spread across the sector. A third strand of her work examines local authority market shaping and commissioning practices, exploring how councils manage and regulate social care markets to assure and improve quality and to create the conditions in which innovation can take hold.
Expertise
Unpaid carers, digital technologies in adult social care, local authority market shaping and commissioning practices, comparative research focused on EU countries, mixed-methods (surveys, qualitative interviews, administrative data analysis), evidence and scoping reviews.
Research
Valentina is currently contributing to “Not another pilot” – a project exploring how successful pilots of innovation in adult social care can move beyond the pilot stage to be sustained and scaled up, and the COSAC (Combinations of Support for Adult Carers) project, which examines which combinations of support improve carers’ lives and what helps make that support available and accessible. Recently, Valentina contributed to the national evaluation of the Adult Social Care Technology Fund, which assessed how technology was adopted and used in adult social care. She was also involved in the independent evaluation of the finalist technologies for the Longitude Prize on Dementia. Valentina led the ASC innovation survey work in the Supporting Adult Social Care Innovation (SASCI) project, a research programme investigating how innovation emerges, is adopted, and spreads in adult social care.
Between 2018 and 2021, Valentina contributed to European Commission research on long-term care through the Social Situation Monitor, producing research notes on the role of new technologies in modernising long-term care systems, quality assurance practices and care market management, and informal care in Europe.
Current projects
Not another pilot
Date: Sept 2026-Sept 2028
Funder: NIHR School for Social Care Research
PI: Dr Hannah Kendrik, Dr Valentina Zigante
COSAC: Combinations of Support for Adult Carers
Date: June 2025 – July 2028
Funder: NIHR Policy Research Programme.
PI: Dr Nicola Brimblecombe Co-I: Dr Valentina Zigante
Recent projects
National evaluation of the Adult Social Care (ASC) Technology Fund
Funder: NIHR Policy Innovation and Evaluation Policy Research Unit (PIRU)
PIs: Dr Josie Dixon and Dr Juliette Malley.
Longitude Prize on Dementia (LPoD) evaluation
Funder: NIHR
PI: Professor Martin Knapp
Collabortors: Juliette Malley, Chiara De Poli and Valentina Zigante.
An evaluation of support for unpaid carers funded through the Better Care Fund
Date: 2022-2023
Funder: NIHR
PI: Dr Nicola Brimblecombe Co-I: Dr Valentina Zigante
Supporting Adult Social Care Innovation (SASCI)
Date: 2019–2025
Funder: Economic and Social Research Council/UKRI.
PI: Dr Juliette Malley
Collabortors: CPEC