About

The European Commission (EC) is inviting application for the Development of New Approaches to the Macroeconomic Modelling of Research and Innovation.

Scope:

• Existing macroeconomic models still fall short in providing sound ex-ante estimates of the various impacts of R&I. Therefore, the European Commission has engaged in a medium- to long-term agenda to improve the treatment of research and innovation (R&I) in macroeconomic models by supporting and financing cutting edge research on macroeconomic modelling able to attract the best researchers to work and develop new models capable of supporting the rising demand for policy evaluation tools in the EU. This agenda started in 2014 following the Commission Communication "Research and innovation as sources of renewed growth". The Council of the European Union called on the Commission to promote further research to build the evidence base for R&I policy making and for budgetary decision making, including by further improving the way R&I is accounted for in macro-economic models.

• On the one hand, R&I are acknowledged as key engines for long-term growth and societal prosperity by an extensive body of economic literature. On the other hand, there is still need to develop further evidence about the quality, relevance and impact of R&I investments and the role that related policies have in scientific, technological, economic and social development. There is a crucial need for more developed and nuanced tools that would be able to account for the heterogeneity of different economic actors and that would be able to simulate the effects of a wide range of policies along different dimensions relevant for societal wellbeing. In addition, it is important that models are able to distinguish between the innovation process and the adoption / diffusion process.

• Against these backdrops, the proposals, building upon the current state of the art existing in the literature, should develop and provide new macro-economic models with R&I, capable to integrate socio-economic challenges.

Funding Information

• The check will normally be done for the coordinator if the requested grant amount is equal to or greater than EUR 500 000, except for:

  • Public bodies (entities established as a public body under national law, including local, regional or national authorities) or international organisations; and

  • Cases where the individual requested grant amount is not more than EUR 60 000 (lowvalue grant)

Expected Outcomes:

• The successful proposal will improve the integration of R&I within macro-economic modelling, while at the same time bringing fresh light on the role of R&I to tackle current societal challenges, with a particular focus on the European context. Project results are expected to contribute to the following expected outcomes:

  • Support research at the knowledge frontier of macroeconomic models;

  • Contribute to the development of innovative and interdisciplinary approaches to modelling of Research and Innovation (R&I) and R&I policy in Europe;

  • Better integrate R&I activities in macro-economic models, leading to better measurement of their impact and a better understanding of the channels through which research and innovation lead to impact (direct and indirect) in Europe;

  • Investigate new approaches to R&I macroeconomic models that link R&I-related drivers to economic, scientific and societal outcomes;

  • Improve macro-economic modelling for the evaluation of R&I policy on different outcome variables, at different levels of policy intervention (EU, national, regional);

  • Produce a novel macro-economic model able to simulate the economy, including the R&I dimension, linking R&I to sustainable and fair growth;

  • Provide the full description of the models, codes and datasets, to allow easy access to forefront modelling ideas to the European scientific community and broader audience.

Eligibility

Eligibility Criteria

• Any legal entity, regardless of its place of establishment, including legal entities from nonassociated third countries or international organisations (including international European research organisations4 ) is eligible to participate (whether it is eligible for funding or not), provided that the conditions laid down in the Horizon Europe Regulation5 have been met, along with any other conditions laid down in the specific call topic.

• A ‘legal entity’ means any natural or legal person created and recognised as such under national law, EU law or international law, which has legal personality and which may, acting in its own name, exercise rights and be subject to obligations, or an entity without legal personality.

• Beneficiaries and affiliated entities must register in the Participant Register before submitting their application, in order to get a participant identification code (PIC) and be validated by the Central Validation Service before signing the grant agreement. For the validation, they will be asked to upload the necessary documents showing their legal status and origin during the grant preparation stage. A validated PIC is not a prerequisite for submitting an application.

• Specific cases:

  • Affiliated entities — Affiliated entities (i.e. entities with a legal or capital link to a beneficiary which participate in the action with similar rights and obligations to the beneficiaries, but which do not sign the grant agreement and therefore do not become beneficiaries themselves) are allowed, if they are eligible for participation and funding.

  • Associated partners — Associated partners (i.e. entities which participate in the action without signing the grant agreement, and without the right to charge costs or claim contributions) are allowed, subject to any conditions regarding associated partners set out in the specific call conditions.

  • Entities without legal personality — Entities which do not have legal personality under their national law may exceptionally participate, provided that their representatives have the capacity to undertake legal obligations on their behalf, and offer guarantees to protect the EU’s financial interests equivalent to those offered by legal persons.

  • EU bodies — Legal entities created under EU law including decentralised agencies may be part of the consortium, unless provided for otherwise in their basic act.

Post Date: 07-Dec-2022