Projects financed by the European Union
IESE is a core member of the Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) EIT Health and has extensive experience in managing projects financed by the European Union. Those include the Horizon 2020 and FP7 Framework cooperation programs with its Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellowships and prestigious European Research Council (ERC) Starting and Advanced Grants. Below is a list of some of the research projects financed by the European Union which have involved IESE participation.
Horizon Europe: EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Excessive consumption of ultra-processed food by young people contributes significantly to rising obesity rates and cardio-metabolic diseases. While the epidemiological evidence linking food processing levels to health outcomes is compelling, existing categorical
classifications limit real-time application in behavioral interventions. While digitally supported gamified interventions show potential for behavioral change, sustainable habit formation requires comprehensive approaches addressing capability, opportunity and motivation simultaneously.
PLAY4PLATES proposes an integrated three-component intevention: FoodProX: an innovative, AI-based algorithmic classification system producing a continuous food processing score (P4P Score); FoodProGame: a co-created gamified behavioural ecosystem
comprising digital and board game components; and FoodProTest: a real-world implementation study across multiple settings and countries.
FoodProX provides an automated, scalable alternative to the manual NOVA classification using machine learning trained on nutrient composition profiles to generate reproducible processing scores applicable in digital interventions. FoodProGame will be codesigned with young people, using the COM-B framework, ensuring engagement and alignment with their lived experiences. FoodProTest implements a pre-post, mixed methods evaluation in four European countries representing diverse culinary and sociocultural contexts, delivered through educational institutions and primary care settings, with intentional recruitment of disadvantaged youth.
PLAY4PLATES will deliver evidence-based recommendations for policy change in food processing classification systems and provide scalable behavioural intervention frameworks for healthier youth nutrition across diverse European contexts, supported by a multilayer, whole-disease health economic model simulating obesity and cardio-metabolic trajectories during the life course and evaluating cost-effectiveness.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Heart failure (HF) driven by cardiometabolic diseases is a major unmet public health need with a high clinical and health system burden. Despite major progress in recent years, clinicians still face substantial challenges in early diagnosis and patient-specific stage appropriate treatment decisions. This reflects a persistent translational bottleneck: the lack of a pathway connecting population-scale health data with mechanistic disease simulation and in silico evaluation of therapies. At the same time, EU investments in the European Health Data Space and Virtual Human Twin (VHT) technologies create an opportunity to address this gap through interoperable cross-border data reuse and advanced computational modelling. VITALITY will develop, validate and translate VHT technologies for selected high-impact use cases in HF. To achieve this, VITALITY is organised into four closely connected areas. Area 1 applies federated learning across cross-border registries and electronic health records to model longitudinal disease trajectories and predict individual risk. Area 2 focuses on patient-specific clinical VHTs for therapy planning and decision support, addressing metabolic regulation, circulatory and myocardial performance, and arrhythmia management. Area 3 scales these models into virtual cohorts for systematic in silico evaluation of therapeutic innovations in drugs and devices. Area 4 provides the secure data and model orchestration backbone and supports regulatory alignment, evidence generation, and translation into clinical and industrial workflows. By linking cross-border data reuse, mechanistic simulation and structured evidence generation, VITALITY will provide a concrete European pathway for trustworthy and interoperable VHT deployment in a high-burden disease area.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
RECIST2.0 will deliver an evidence-based, internationally aligned evolution of RECIST1.1 for response assessment in solid tumours. It addresses a major bottleneck in oncology drug development: current one-dimensional target-lesion criteria incompletely capture treatment benefit in the era of targeted therapies, immunotherapies, mixed response patterns, and bone-dominant, diffuse or infiltrative disease. The project will develop a pragmatic, rule-based framework centred on longitudinal CT-based whole-disease burden assessment, with MRI explored where relevant and PET and ctDNA incorporated only in contexts of use where they add clear value. Using mature prospectively acquired trial datasets linked to overall survival, quality of life and patient evaluability, the consortium will harmonise imaging, molecular and clinical data within a secure, FAIR-aligned central and federated infrastructure, generate standardised quantitative outputs, and benchmark unimodal and multimodal configurations against RECIST1.1 and clinically meaningful outcomes. Trustworthy AI will support quality control, segmentation, tracking, standardisation and benchmarking, without replacing transparent response rules. A major strength is the Europe-led, global, pre-competitive public private consortium, which unites the founding RECIST Working Group institutions, major academic trial networks, regulators, HTA bodies, professional societies, patient representatives, pharmaceutical companies, and imaging, diagnostics and digital technology partners. This combination of multimodal data access, methodological leadership, regulatory credibility and implementation expertise will enable delivery of a broadly adoptable CT-based core, context-specific PET and ctDNA extensions, qualification-oriented evidence packages, and consensus recommendations for oncology trials.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
The rise in cardiovascular disease among cancer patients and survivors, due to treatment side effects, poses a significant challenge to patient outcomes and healthcare systems. Managing cardiotoxicity is difficult due to its delayed onset and lack of reliable biomarkers,
often requiring dose reduction or discontinuation of cancer treatment, which may compromise its effectiveness.
The COMPASS project aims to optimize cardiovascular health for cancer patients and survivors through a comprehensive, patient centered clinical pathway over five years. It will advance cardio-oncology research by creating an international network and developing tools for better disease prediction, prevention, diagnosis, and management. The project focuses on integrating cardio oncology care pathways, optimizing diagnostic biomarkers, and utilizing AI-supported imaging and wearable technologies for early detection and personalized treatment, while promoting sustainable healthcare delivery and reducing environmental impact.
COMPASS methodology includes three pillars: (i) Discovery of Novel Biomarkers and Parameters, (ii) AI Prediction Models and Clinical Decision Support System, and (iii) Improving Care Delivery and Patient Engagement. Activities across the program include Health Economics, Communication, Dissemination, Exploitation and Sustainability, and Ethics and Regulatory Aspects. 67 academic and industrial partners will collaborate to translate scientific advancements into clinical applications, apply novel AI approaches, ensuring solutions are effective, meet patient needs, and align with European health policies and regulations. Key stakeholders include clinicians, nurses, patients, payers, regulators, and industry actors. COMPASS aims to advance cardio-oncology research, reduce healthcare costs, and improve patient well-being through innovative tools, collaborative networks, and policy support. Ultimately, it aims to improve patient outcomes for both cancer and heart health.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Label2Scale tackles a fundamental challenge for Europe’s digital health future: ensuring that rapidly evolving patient-centred digital health technologies (pDHTs), including health apps, wearables and telehealth tools, are evidence-based, trusted, and effectively integrated into healthcare systems, improving safety and medical outcomes, supporting healthcare professionals, and contributing to sustainable health systems.
Current regulatory science frameworks, spanning MDR, AI Act, EHDS and beyond, are not keeping pace with innovation, leaving critical gaps in evidence sufficiency, limited use of real-world and AI-enabled data, and fragmented assessment across Europe.
Label2Scale goes significantly beyond the state of the art by conducting original research in five areas where no validated solution exists, RWE reporting guidelines, equivalence criteria, value-based pricing, automated assessment tooling, and a post-project governance model, advancing lifecycle-based, harmonised pDHT evaluation.
Building on CEN-ISO 82304-2 and Label2Enable, it integrates AI-enabled models and real-world evidence, validated through a regulatory sandbox across diverse real-world use cases.
Bringing together a range of scientific disciplines, standardisation bodies, health authorities, conformity assessment bodies, industry, healthcare professionals and patients across a 23-partner, 13-country consortium, Label2Scale co-develops solutions through a shared portal, trained conformity assessment bodies, a best-practices toolbox, and a self-sustaining governance body, with outputs embedded in the ISO 82304-2 revision for durable global impact.
Label2Scale provides policymakers with actionable guidance for faster, safer and more equitable pDHT uptake, strengthens Europe’s leadership in digital health innovation, and contributes to a competitive, sustainable and resilient health industry and healthcare System.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Antonino Vaccaro, Business Ethics and Negotiation Teaching Unit
CUSTOMICS addresses the growing threat of illegal vegetable seed flows and associated microbiological risks to EU supply chains. Illicit seed trade undermines phytosanitary security, agricultural innovation, and market integrity, while climate change increases the likelihood of novel pathogens entering the EU through seeds. To respond to these challenges, CUSTOMICS will develop a rapid and scalable inspection platform that integrates next-generation sequencing (NGS), portable genomic devices, and secure data systems to support real-time customs decision-making. Using tomato seeds as a proof-of-concept crop of high economic value, CUSTOMICS will establish fast genomic workflows for seed variety authentication, ensuring traceability and protection of intellectual property rights. In parallel, the project will create a metagenomic pipeline capable of detecting a broad spectrum of microbial contaminants—including viruses, bacteria, and fungi—within a One Health framework, strengthening EU capacity to identify emerging phytosanitary threats at borders. To ensure operational relevance, CUSTOMICS will co-develop procedures with EU customs laboratories and prototype a cybersecurity-enabled fraud-reporting database that links customs, phytosanitary authorities, and law-enforcement agencies. This will enable real-time case cross-referencing, harmonised workflows, and evidence-based interventions across Member States. By combining plant genomics, metagenomics, cybersecurity, bioinformatics, and regulatory expertise, CUSTOMICS will deliver a field-adapted, interoperable, and legally compliant solution that enhances EU border security, accelerates inspections, and protects agricultural resources and consumer trust. The project will lay the foundation for a scalable model applicable to additional crop species, reinforcing EU resilience against biological and economic threats.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Cardiovascular diseases (CVDs) remain the leading cause of mortality and disability in Europe, with persistent inequalities across populations and health systems. While artificial intelligence (AI) and health data offer major opportunities to improve prevention, early detection and care, their uptake remains fragmented and uneven. CHAIN will operationalise the EU Safe Hearts Plan by enabling the safe, effective and scalable adoption of AI and health data for CVDs and related non-communicable diseases.
CHAIN acts as an incubator that focuses on implementation, evaluation, governance and scale-up. It delivers an EHDS-aligned, federated ecosystem combining interoperable data foundations, a curated repository of validated AI solutions with “AI passports”, and toolkits for technical, clinical, ethical and economic evaluation. To pave the way for a common definition of core set of technical specifications used in AI development and validation, at least six use cases will be deployed and assessed across heterogenous healthcare settings in 12 European countries, covering key stages of the care continuum, including population risk stratification, early disease detection, guideline-aligned clinical decision support and management of complex CV conditions, generating transferable implementation evidence and deployment guidance.
CHAIN extends and consolidates results from major EU initiatives and Joint Actions, including EUCAIM, COMPASS-AI, AI4HF, DataTools4Heart, EHDEN, JACARDI, TEHDAS2 and x-tEHR, avoiding duplication while accelerating impact. A structured open-call mechanism will onboard new data holders into the federated network, strengthening representativeness and inclusion, particularly in countries with lower digital maturity.
Anchored by the European Society of Cardiology and a broad multi-stakeholder consortium, CHAIN integrates regulatory readiness, capacity building, and policy dialogue, culminating in a European Strategic Roadmap for AI and data in CV health.
IESE Faculty: Clara Carrera, Operations, Information and Technology Department
(Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Víctor Martínez de Albéniz)
The project RETHREAD (Rethinking the Humanitarian Resale Ecosystem for Apparel Donations) examines how charities in the second-hand clothing sector are affected by ultra-fast fashion (UFF) and peer-to-peer (P2P) resale platforms. Second-hand sales have long delivered environmental benefits and vital funding for charities, but these activities are now threatened by the influx of low- quality garments, competition from P2P platforms, and new regulations banning the destruction of unsold inventory, which risk overwhelming charities with unsellable stock. RETHREAD pursues three objectives: (1) map the European post-consumer apparel ecosystem, identifying actors, flows, and leverage points for intervention; (2) assess how P2P resale and UFF affect charity revenues and consumer behavior, including rebound effects; and (3) evaluate the operational consequences of unsold inventory donation mandates on charities, product quality, and competitive dynamics. The project applies a multi-method approach, combining durable goods modeling with analysis of a unique dataset from the online resale platform of a major French charity. This is complemented by stakeholder interviews, consumer surveys, and European policy reports. Integrating operations management, behavioral economics, non-profit operations, and policy analysis, the research links empirical evidence with formal modeling and scenario analysis. Expected outputs include academic publications, decision-support tools for charities, and an innovative interactive policy brief. By advancing knowledge on secondary markets and non-profit operations, RETHREAD directly supports Horizon Europe’s goals on sustainability, circular economy, and social inclusion, strengthening the resilience of charities as key social actors and providing regulators with evidence for socially responsible circular economy policies.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Thomas Maximilian Klueter, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The EIC Scaling Club’s mission is to grow Europe’s tech success stories. It is to be the home where 100 selected European deep-tech
scale-ups, their investors and stakeholders collaborate to develop market opportunities and contribute to a better world. It will deliver
6 sets of services to its members over a period of 3.5 years:
– Engage the most active investors, corporations, agencies, clusters and media and mentors
– Grow the value of the 100 selected member companies with a best-in-class venture mentoring programme;
– Facilitate the financing, partnering and hiring of talent through a curated roadshow of events
– Share the inspirational success stories of the scale-ups
– Develop relationships with the key institutions at EU and Member States
– Manage the Club to a self-sustainable future
The Club is led by 6 complementary partners who believe that Europe is a technology and unicorn powerhouse with a purpose. Its
deep tech sale-ups are at work to bring solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Thomas Maximilian Klueter, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The DIH4CAT is an strategic non-profit regional innovation ecosystem formed by the most advanced agents supporting digitisation in Catalonia (Spain). Since 2022, it is the one-stop shop offering digital services and AI-focused solutions to support the digital transformation of SMEs, start-ups, and PSOs, while connecting supply and demand in Catalonia and beyond. The project is led by ACCIÓ, which holds the legal representation and oversees the governance. DIH4CAT is a dynamic community of 12 complementary entities—including RTOs, universities, business schools, and industry associations—structured around seven Digital Innovation Nodes, each led by a top-tier RTO or university with strong expertise and infrastructure. From a technology point of view, the development and uptake of AI is established as a first priority. In addition, the DIH4CAT includes a cross-cutting technology node led by the Barcelona Supercomputing Center, which provides Advanced AI Computing Services through the BSC AI Factory. DIH4CAT continuation (2026– 2028) builds on past successes: more than 600 technology services provided (22% increase in digital maturity so far), more than 20 active international collaborations or more than 290 funding advisory services, among others. Relevant changes will be made to align with the call objectives and based on the learnings achieved, seeking to maximize impact and better integrate in the AI ecosystem. DIH4CAT is totally aligned with the Regional, National and European policies, and it is considered a strategic initiative at regional level, highly recognized by the Government. As such, the regional Government will co-fund it at 27,25% funding rate (complementing the 50% of DIGITAL, 6,25% National and 26,5 % of private Investment) The continuation of the project is key to consolidating services and impact, and as such an ambitious work plan is set to deliver high-quality services and contribute to the European AI innovation ecosystem.
IESE Faculty: Jieun Shin
(Supervisor: Prof. Fabrizio Ferraro)
GREENCHAIN will establish a robust and innovative foundation for advancing our understanding of supply chain sustainability, by 1) developing an interdisciplinary theoretical framework that integrates perspectives from economics, management, finance, operations management, and industrial engineering and 2) establishing empirical frameworks that leverage cutting-edge econometric approaches, novel data sources, and real-world contexts from Europe and Japan. The project will investigate the reasons, mechanisms, and conditions under which firms pressure their suppliers to reduce environmental impacts, identify key characteristics that make firms more proactive in these actions, and assess the broader implications for customers, suppliers, the environment, and the economy. GREENCHAIN’s interdisciplinary approach will provide policymakers and businesses with critical insights into the drivers and dynamics of sustainable supply chain practices while equipping them with tools to evaluate the financial and environmental returns of these initiatives. Hosted by the globally renowned IESE Business School and supported by its Sustainability initiatives, I will enhance my abilities in project management, theoretical development, advanced quantitative data analysis, and the communication of research findings – skills essential to establish myself as a leading expert in corporate sustainability management and contribute to both academic discourse and European policy on sustainable supply chains.
IESE Faculty: Laura Wagner
(Supervisor: Prof. Victor Martínez de Albéniz)
DALE addresses an urgent need to advance research on consumer behavior, namely consumers’ responses to the timing of mobile data scarcity messages and data breach announcements, using a multi-method approach composed of theoretical models and largescale randomized experiments (RME). DALE builds upon research from information systems, behavioral economics, operations, and marketing to build more effective tools to improve consumption efficiency and mitigate the repercussions of cyberattacks. First, DALE builds a theoretical framework of how behavioral nudges in a resource scarce setting improves consumption efficiency and shows that in contrary to conventional wisdom sending warnings as early as possible may lead to higher chances of data shortages, a finding that highlights the importance of an under-investigated aspect, namely the timing of alerts. Based on the above, the project complements the study with a RME in partnership with a leading telecommunication provider. Interlinked with the ever-increasing data consumption needs, is the problem that the very same data we leave behind may be breached. The second phase investigates how consumers react to data-breach announcements. I build a theoretical framework of how consumer shopping behavior may change in response to such breaches and test these predictions with a four-year granular dataset provided by a multi-channel grocery partner. DALE will provide practical cross-sectional, interdisciplinary interventions for use by academia, policymakers, and business.
My training, supervised at IESE Business School, will allow me to hone new academic and non-academic skills and fulfill my career ambitions: a) Become a renowned researcher with top-level, influential connections to industry and public entities; b) Position me as an interdisciplinary, cross-sectoral expert on consumer behavior in the digital world, poised for achieving tenure track goals and decision-influencing leadership in non-academic settings.
IESE Faculty: Claudio Rizzi
(Supervisor: Prof. Fabrizio Ferraro)
GREENVEST fuses the power of satellite data and cutting-edge econometric analysis to study patterns emerging in two under-studied, inter-connected phenomena at the crossroads of finance, environmental science, and economics: (1) green investments and local economies and (2) the contribution of market dynamics on biodiversity loss and pollution. Drawing on research from environmental economics, climate science, finance, and business strategy, I will explore and reveal to what extent households’ financial welfare is impacted by public and private investments in green projects and how the investments, performance, and environmental impact of local firms and banks are affected by government green initiatives such as the EU Green Deal and the US Inflation Reduction Act (IRA).
GREENVEST’s new modeling approach will not only enable environmental economists to estimate the financial value of natural ecosystems but highlight for the first time the financial value of nature conservation and the financial benefits of investments in nature-based solutions. With the world-renowned business school IESE as my host and channeling my project through its Institute of Sustainable Leadership, I will grow new skills in project management skills, R&I insight communication and satellite and biodiversity data analysis to become a leading voice in biodiversity and sustainable finance in both academia and as a European policy influencer about green investments in service to public, non-profit, and private institutions.
IESE Faculty: Natalie Burford
(Supervisor: Prof. Sampsa Samila)
PLATEX studies how users are affected by increased standardization associated with tools and services offered by platforms, and whether AI offsets these effects through customization. PLATEX reveals a potential “illusion of choice” where optional tools shape competition on platforms and enable unequal treatment of users under the veil of self-selection. In the empirical context of the ecommerce industry, PLATEX examines how a tool offered by a leading European price comparison platform impacts users’ behavior and performance. In a second step, PLATEX integrates platform and AI research to examine the interplay of standardization and customization through AI. To this end, PLATEX conducts experiments on a newly created peer-to-peer chat platform and analyses the use of an AI tool based on natural language processing (NLP), using an innovative methodological approach that combines the benefits of lab and field experiments. PLATEX builds on a two-way transfer of knowledge between the researcher, whose research identity centers on ecosystems and platforms, and the host institution IESE Business School, where the supervisor of the project, Prof. Sampsa Samila, directs the AI and Future of Management Initiative. The training advances the researcher’s knowledge and network in the field of AI, adds to her methodological toolkit with experimental methods, and sets her on the path to a tenured professorship at a leading European business school. It also positions her for non-academic roles in the fields of data science, business development and technology regulation.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
In the medium to longer-term, the fiscal space that governments have to provide additional budgetary resources will shrink, including for healthcare. Our response is that it is better to pre-empt rather than repair i.e., to incentivise new ways of financing health promotion and disease prevention. The financing solution is smart capacitating investment. This means sharing risks and resources to invest at scale across multiple levels within health ecosystems generating sustainable returns and localised benefits. The specific objectives are:
- Draw on available evidence to strengthen how smart capacitating investment is framed and communicated
- Assess and enhance organisational readiness for testing SCI models in the regional test-beds
- Develop and test business models that are compatible with smart capacitating investment
- Develop and test novel finance models to determine which of the business models align with pre-defined contingencies for delivering smart capacitating investment
- Develop and test a prototype collaborative platform for governing smart capacitating investment in health promotion and prevention.
With an interdisciplinary approach we calibrate and harmonise 3 main work streams: developing functional prototype models of the anchoring concept (smart capacitating investment) [WP2-4]; iterative testing in real world environments (ES,DE,SE,UK initially with an Open Call for a 2nd tranche of transition and less developed regions) to show relevance in tax and insurance-based systems [WP5-6]; preparing asocial franchising package for large-scale demonstration [WP7]. Underpinning these workstreams, we will also explore and test platform-based collaborative spaces for the involvement of resourced citizen panels and local communities in planning and investment decisions for interventions and services. The project generates concrete outcomes and impacts for further development and uptake of smart capacitating investment that disrupts state-of-the-art.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
The MELISSA project aims to provide a clinically validated, effective, trustworthy, and cost-efficient artificial intelligence (AI)-based digital diabetes management solution to support both health care providers (HCPs) and insulin-treated patients with diabetes (PwD) in their daily routine with personalised treatment and care recommendations. The solution is independent of the used glucose monitoring devices and is based on the combined use of already prototyped advanced AI-approaches and innovative tools for quantification of lifestyle and behavioural factors, taking into consideration sex/gender aspects, age, and socio-economic parameters related to the development of diabetes. More specifically, core element of the project is the daily insulin treatment adjustment to ensure glucose control using an already introduced self-learning approach based on reinforcement learning. The approach is data- driven, real-time and of low computational cost and allows daily adjustment of the insulin infusion profile, on the basis of the fluctuations in the patients glucose. The approach takes into consideration patients? treatment-related (glucose, insulin, and carbohydrate intake) and conceptual information and during the project will be further extended and optimized to include additional lifestyle and behavioural parameters. Furthermore, tools for assessing the risk of short- and long-term complications will assist HCPs in reaching better decisions on adjustments to the treatment schemes. To meet the objectives the consortium brings together partners active in the fields of diabetes (PwD and HCPs), diabetes technology, AI, behavioral sciences, ethics in AI, regulatory affairs, healthcare economics and clinical trials to further co-create, clinically develop, optimize, and clinically validate an AI-based solution for more effective and cost-efficient diabetes management through personalised treatment and care.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Noncommunicable diseases (NCDs) are a major public health problem, resulting in over 70% of global deaths each year; the majority (85%) of deaths occur in low-and middle-income countries. While cost-effective, evidence-based best practices are available, implementation of these interventions has remained a critical challenge, particularly ones targeted at promoting health behaviors among adolescents and youth. Despite the importance, few studies have been undertaken to identify the facilitators and barriers to the implementation of evidence-based interventions that promote healthy behaviors among adolescents and youth in sub-Saharan Africa (SSA).
“Reducing nutrition-related noncommunicable diseases in adolescence and youth: From nutrition literacy to fluency” will take a major step towards improving the implementation of evidence-based interventions – nutrition education and SSB policy – that promote healthy behaviors among adolescents and youth in SSA to reduce the impact of NCDs. With the use of a multi-disciplinary approach, innovative design, and cutting-edge tools, the proposed project aims to establish a global alliance to prevent and reduce nutrition related NCDs among adolescence and youth in SSA region, by shaping individuals’ health behaviors through nutrition literacy and fluency, assessing the impact and performance of the nutrition-related policy and promotion programs, and providing flexible, cost effective, scalable, reliable, secure and easy-to-use tools. The establishment of an Africa Think Tank for Adolescents and Youth Health, and annual forums will help facilitate continuous engagement with key stakeholders to enhance buy-in, acceptance and relevance of the project outputs. Ultimately, the expected wider effects of this project include improved NCD prevention policy adoption and implementation, improved policies and evidence-informed decision making amongst key stakeholders, and ultimately decreased avoidable mortality due to NCDs.
IESE Faculty: Haimeng Hester Zhang
(Supervisor: Prof. Xavier Vives)
This project will study the improvement in effectiveness of the European Commission’s leniency program in cartel detection post the 2002 reform, which improved the program’s transparency and reduced its uncertainty. Specifically, I aim to quantify the increase in number of leniency applications attributed to the feature of automatic amnesty using a structural approach. In addition, I am interested in finding out how firms with different characteristics, such assizes, industries, compositions of management and board, respond differently to the reduction in uncertainty. The main objectives of the project include deepening the understanding of firms’ behaviors under uncertainty, bringing forth methodological innovations, informing on policy making and raising awareness of the general public.
To achieve these objectives, I will employ innovative approaches that are multidisciplinary and go beyond the state of the art, while paying special attention to the of gender. I will actively engage in supervision and training provided by my host institution, construct and refine the theoretical model and empirical strategy in a timely manner, disseminate the research idea and findings through a professional network that I will actively expand, and engage with a broader audience outside of academia, including policymakers, business leaders and the general public.
In the process of achieving these objectives, I will acquire and improve skills in technical aspects of economics research, data management and research management. I will also expand my professional network, improve domain translational expertise, which will enhance my career prospects in academia, the private and public sectors.
Horizon 2020: EU Framework Programme for Research and Innovation
IESE Faculty: Prof. Juan Roure
15 partners (mainly national business support agencies) from 12 European countries joined their efforts in GO-SME project. Throughout the EU, the fragmentation of innovation ecosystems and the lack of interconnection between public national and regional agencies appear to be one of the main obstacles to securing support for the most promising SMEs. The GO-SME project responds to the need to provide financial support to SMEs and start-ups for the development of their innovative ideas. The aim of GO-SME is to share the best practices of participating research funding organisations (RFOs) and their mutual learning in designing programmes which would support SMEs and start-ups in an initial assessment of their innovative ideas so that they can progress to more advanced stages of innovation development. To achieve this aim, a combination of the following activities will be used: 1/learning from best practices already applied in support schemes for innovative SMEs and startups, 2/motivation of agencies from widening countries to design innovation support schemes for SMEs and start-ups, 3/cooperation in the setting up of comparable support schemes and sets of selection criteria, 4/sharing of best practices in the work with (international) experts and sharing of their pools 5/learning from best practices in providing coaching and mentoring services to innovative SMEs and start-ups 6/mutual opening up pools of coaches and mentors 7/offering of special services to running projects which will be selected as the most promising by an independent international panel. The added value of the project rests in its ambition to design national and regional programmes supporting innovative SMEs which could act as a pipeline for the EIC Accelerator and be part of the “plug-in” mechanism. At the same time, it can serve as a pilot project for a possible partnership co-funded from innovation ecosystems in the Horizon Europe programme.
IESE Faculty: Luca Mongelli
The European Union recently recognized “The empowerment of marginalized individuals” as one of the most relevant topics in modern societies. In its formal EU 2020 Strategy documents, the European Union listed “poverty, social exclusion and marginalization” as one of its main “Targets” and “inclusive growth” as one of its major “Priorities”. In 2011, the EU Commission adopted the Social Business Initiative (SBI), with the aim to promote the social enterprise as one of the most promising forms of entrepreneurial venture capable of dealing with this societal issue and fostering “inclusive growth”. However, the mechanisms by which the social enterprise may successfully allow the empowerment of marginalized individuals by economic driven solutions are not clear yet, and there is a lack of empirical works able to provide fine- grained/ micro-level evidences on this topic. Given these premises, I will commit this MSCA-IF research project to exploring the empowerment of convicted women, one of the most extremely marginalized category of individuals, using the perspective of social enterprise. I believe that a micro-level study of a successful case of social enterprises could reveal the critical factors behind the success or failure of these important initiatives, and from there, how they should be implemented.
There are two main research objectives:
- to investigate the micro-processes enacted by social enterprises, which successfully allow the empowerment of one of the most marginalized category of people: convicted women;
- to compare the micro-processes enacted by social enterprises, which, in extreme cases of marginalization, allow them a) to bridge closed context of marginalization and the external environment, and b) to bridge the social and economic dimension.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Diego Aparicio
Will there exist price convergence in the online marketplaces? Is the economy shifting to a form of uniform pricing (each user observes the same price) or to a form of personalized pricing (discounts or prices are specific to groups of consumers)? From a managerial standpoint: What are companies’ optimal pricing strategies? What are the optimal frequencies of price changes? What is the optimal personalization? From the consumer standpoint: What are the behavioral reactions? What are the fairness concerns to those strategies? The research supported by this grant will allow to address these questions. The research lies in the intersection of pricing and big data using data from two main sources: data collected from online marketplaces; and data obtained from field experiments in partnerships with leading European retailers. The study of pricing and big data are core priorities for government agencies in Europe and the United States. For instance, big data is one of the five priorities under the “Digitizing European Industry” initiative and of Horizon 2020. The research will extract concrete implications. For academics, the development of advanced pricing optimization. For managers, the implementation of pricing algorithms in collaboration with academics that incorporates consumers’ concerns. And for policymakers, the understanding and thereby design of policies that regulate and increase price transparency, in a world where the barriers to using personalized data are increasingly complex.
“This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 892142”.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Xavier Vives
The project intends to study the effect of the ownership structure of firms on competition in product markets, innovation, and aggregate outcomes, and derive welfare and policy implications. The rise of institutional investment, with the profound changes in the asset management industry in recent decades, has implied important variations in the ownership structure of firms. Among them, there has been a formidable increase in common ownership of firms in the same industry, which has raised antitrust concerns, mostly in the US but also in the EU. At the same time, a lack of dynamism in terms of entry and exit, investment and innovation, linked to potential secular stagnation of advanced economies, has been perceived, and blamed on the rise of market power. The proposed research will develop mostly theoretical models to study the effects of changes in the investment industry and firms’ ownership patterns on product markets and the general equilibrium macroeconomic consequences. The proposal consists of five strands. The first three purport to study the effect of changes of the market structure of the investment industry and ownership structure of firms on: i) market power in product markets; ii) investment and innovation incentives in the presence of technological spillovers among firms; and iii) aggregate output, investment, labour supply and income distribution. The fourth strand aims to develop empirical assessments of the developed theory. The final strand of the proposal will derive the antitrust and regulatory implications of the results. Particular attention will be devoted to the impact of changes in the network of control rights and cash flow rights of firms’ owners. The novelty of the approach lies in the integration of the perspectives and tools of industrial organization, corporate finance, and network theory to provide a global view of the relationship between ownership structure, competition and innovation.
“This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (Grant Agreement No 789013)”.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats
The STARTED project will put in place a project-based learning approach for developing entrepreneurial skills (and spirit) in researchers, to foster interactions between stakeholders in R&D innovation, and to guide the transfer of innovative projects through to startups.
This project will enable the setting up of a European Research-to-Startup Centre (ERSC) supported by a shared web-platform centralising ad hoc learning and training contents/tools/guidelines to create/help future entrepreneurs, with dedicated modules to promote interactions with R&D organisations, technical centres or business angels (ResearchInno database and forum). The scope of dissemination in this project is wide-reaching considering the imperative of national R&D bodies and the support of European startup organisations.
The main benefits for European society are: the creation of durable bridges between research organisations and startup ecosystem stakeholders, development of entrepreneurial skills through guided self-learning, increasing student employability by IDEs (innovation-driven enterprises), and improvement of innovation transfer to businesses in a variety of sectors in search of competitiveness enhancement (agriculture, tourism, fitness, etc.).
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats
InvestHorizon is a programme financed by the European Commission, in association with Eureka, to facilitate series A funding for selected deep tech companies boosting their investment readiness and investor relations.
The commission aim to offer support to innovative high-growth potential SMEs from EU Member States, Associated countries to Horizon 2020 and Eureka member countries, partner countries or Associated countries to Eureka, to improve their access to finance. The Contractor will provide investment readiness services, which aim to help and prepare innovative high-growth potential SMEs to become investment ready. The services will be customized for each SME according to the specific needs identified within the frame of the services described in the tender specifications.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Sampsa Samila
While gender and ethnic diversity have increased in the workforce, the evidence is much less clear on whether there has been an increase in gender and ethnic integration, i.e., people actually working together across gender and ethnic lines. This project will analyse large databases (1) to assess trends in gender and ethnic integration in science, innovation, and entrepreneurship, (2) to understand the causes and consequences of gender and ethnic integration as well as potential barriers, and (3) to improve the methodology in the study of gender and ethnic integration and to develop indices that could be used to track changes. The project is specifically focused on European data and will consider issues related to differences in the level of integration within as well as between countries. Furthermore, the project will be able to analyze integration at multiple levels including team, organization, city, and field. The project will use large databases including PATSTAT, Microsoft Academic Graph, and government registry data, combined with name-matching algorithms to estimate the gender and ethnicity of the scientists, inventors, and entrepreneurs. The results of the project are highly relevant for scholars studying innovation, entrepreneurship, social inclusion, social structure, and inequality. The results will also be translated into insights for managers to help them understand and possibly integration in their organizations, yielding greater creativity and innovativeness. Furthermore, the results are of interest to policy makers as increasing gender and ethnic integration within Europe would help European competitiveness as well as the cohesion of European societies.
“This project has received funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme under the Marie Sklodowska-Curie grant agreement No 799330”.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats
The overall objective of the “TechCapMarkets” project is to enable an increase in the supply of alternative finance for innovative SMEs, and in particular equity finance, by improving the exit opportunities for shareholders in private innovative SMEs. The project will also cover the use of the capital markets to diversify and increase the supply of alternative finance to innovative SMEs via venture capital funds. The project deliberately focuses on this specific component of the alternative finance ecosystem.
The project will form Expert Working Groups (EWGs), composed of market practitioners, and guided by a high-level advisory group (HLAG), that will conduct consultations around specific topics related to the use of public and private markets as an exit option for alternative financiers and their use as a source of alternative finance. Given the early and emerging nature of some of these areas, e.g. secondary trading markets for shares in private SMEs, it is highly important to bring to the wider alternative finance ecosystem all the latest and cutting edge experience of market experts.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Juan Roure, Juan Luis Segurado and Amparo de San José
Promising ICT project results obtained in the course of H2020/FP7/CIP programmes are expected to lead to innovative solutions in fields like Energy, Life Sciences, Health, Ambient Intelligence, Transport, Industry 4.0, SmartCities, etc. However, most of results are early stage disruptive innovations from technology and/or applications point of view. If their potential economic impact is attractive, they face challenges before reaching any commercial exploitation and require specialised support. IRSUS will bridge the gaps faced by innovators (research teams, SMEs, spinoffs & startups) to reach the market with a feasible, viable and attractive business case and strategy for users, clients, partners and investors. IRSUS will create value to support innovators through the road to market.170 promising ICT innovations coming from research projects and detected by the Innovation Radar methodology by the EC will directly benefit from IRSUS activities, to successfully drive their way to markets and to reach commercial exploitation. IRSUS consortium will: 1 Introduce business-related elements into the core of the innovators 2 Provide them with training, partnering and individual/group business support services (mentoring, private&public funding, support to licensing, etc). Services will be strengthen with external specialised actors, e.g. business coaches or corporate funds. Ready for investment innovators will be introduced to our Advisory Board of Investors. 3 Connect innovators with already existing public & private initiatives to maximize the quality and quantity of delivered services. 4 Raise awareness on innovations to make an impact on the whole European R&I ecosystem. The complementary consortium partners include expertise in value creation of R&I results, business & entrepreneurship, EU projects & funding sources and cover the whole EU geography (ZABALA and IESE Business School in Spain; innomine in Hungary, DOCOMO Digital in Italy; etVenture Startup Hub in Germany).
IESE Faculty: Prof. Juan Roure, Juan Luis Segurado, Amparo de San José
Abstract: The overall concept of the project consist of supporting innovation in SMEs and fostering the smart reindustrialization of Europe by enabling the emergence of new cross-border and cross-sectoral value chains resulting from the translation of advanced technologies among selected sectors with strong synergies. These new value chains will be created from the interaction of the following sectors: aerospace,agro-food sector, Health & medical devices and ICT.
The project will take of 36Months. The development of the new value chains will be facilitated setting up geographical poles of activitiy in different regions across ES, PT,NL, IL and PL, comprising: Cluster/ SME intermediaries, which help create an appropriate innovation ecosystems;RTD centres. which are able to assess the potential and viability of the proposed new value chains for SMEs innovative services or products. Besides, a third kind of entity, theinnovation facilitatorswill operate at a cross-cluster level, organizing funding rounds to complement with private funds EU public support and establishing networks for collaboration. More than 50 letters of support signed by different type of stakeholders.
ACTTiVAte will undertake 2 kind of activities to optimize the benefits to SMEs: a) Direct funding of SMEs innovative projects. Competitive calls will be launched in the proposed technology areas.Thewining projects (30) will receive an amount of up to 50.000€ each from a total of a 1,5M€ from the project budget. The selection criteria will consider both the technical feasibility and viability and the socioeconomic impact. Investment rounds will be organized to raise private funding to multiply the effect of public investment. b) Activities aimed at creating a favourable environment for the innovation in SMEs, such as brockerage events, mentoring, coaching, mobility and exchange programs among other initiatives. The demonstration of the project at large scale will also be carried out during the project.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Joan Enric Ricart and Prof. Pascual Berrone.
Partner institutions: Stockholms stad, Stadt Köln, Institut Municipal d’Informàtica de Barcelona, ICLEI European Secretariat GmbH, Kungliga Tekniska Högskolan (KTH), Stadt Graz, Municipiul Suceava, Authority for Transport in Malta, Câmara Municipal do Porto, Cork City Council, Regional Environmental Center for Central and Eastern Europe (REC), Envac AB, Dalkia Sverige AB, Fortum Power and Heat AB, Carrier Transport AB, Skanska Sverige AB, Info24 AB, Insero E-Mobility AS (IEM), RheinEnergie (RE), ampido GmbH, STATTAUTO Köln Gesellschaft für Car Sharing mbH, AGT Group (R&D) GmbH, Deutsche Wohnungsgesellschaft mbH (DEWOG), Endesa SA, RETEVISION I, S.A., Anteverti Consulting SL, Barcelona Supercomputing Center – Centro Nacional de Supercomputación (BSC), Centre d’Innovació del Transport (CENIT), Gas Natural SDG, S.L., Fundació Privada I2CAT, Institut de Recerca en Energia de Catalunya (IREC), Philips GmbH, Schneider Electric Industries SAS, UrbisUp Consulting SL, Promoting Operational Links with Integrated Services (POLIS), IBM Svenska AB.
GrowSmarter aims to improve the quality of life for European citizens by better mobility, housing and the quality of urban infrastructure while improving the citizens economy by lower energy costs and creating as much as 1500 new jobs (on the demonstration level); to reduce the environmental impact by lower energy needs by 60 % and increased use of renewable energy thus reducing GHG emissions even more; and to create sustainable economic development by demonstrating and preparing a wider rollout of smart solutions.
GrowSmarter will demonstrate at 3 lighthouse cities 12 smart, integrated solutions as a way of preparing for a wider market rollout. These solutions are integrated in specially chosen sites making demonstration easy to reach and take part of for the 5 follower cities and other European and international study groups. All the smart solutions are fit into the Lighthouse-cities strategic development plans and the follower cities replication plans.
The solutions solve common urban challenges such as renewal of existing buildings (GrowSmarter demonstrates the cost efficient renewal of 100.000 square meters of Nearly Zero or low energy districts reducing energy demand by 70-90%), integrated infrastructures for ICT, street lighting, smart grids district heating and smarter waste handling or sustainable urban mobility for both passenger and gods integrated in smart grids, biofuels from household waste thus reducing local air quality emissions by 60%.
The integration of Cities, strong group of industrial partners together and quality research organisations guarantee that the solutions will be both validated by independent research organisations and transformed into Smart Business Solutions by industry for the wider rollout to Europe.
Growsmarter builds on integrated, close to the market solutions, to form business models for their wider deployment by the industrial partners. The project will help Europe GrowSmarter!
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Partner institutions: Instituto de Medicina Molecular da Universidade de Lisboa, Universitat Pompeu Fabra, Technopage SA, CEAMED SA, ProteoDesign SL, Universidade Federal do Rio de Janeiro, University of Queensland, Stanford University, Instituto Ciência Hoje (ICH).
INPACT aims at the pre-clinical development of innovative drugs and drug formulations against selected cancers (e.g. prostate cancer) and pathogenic bacteria (e.g. S. aureus). The INPACT consortium allies the expertise of both academic and industrial R&D partners that contribute with their own unique technologies to achieve new drugs that are only possible to develop in an integrative effort. Academic partners have unique knowledge and technologies on supercharged viral proteins-derived cell-penetrating peptides (eg from Dengue virus) and ultra-resistant cyclic peptides that may be transferred to the industrial partners, which in turn have specialized proprietary technologies on anticancer and/or peptide drugs’ technologies. The judicious exchange of knowledge among partners will lead to new resistant peptides for trans-barrier delivery of drugs (eg cyclic peptide-drug chimeras) and bacterial killing (both planktonic and biofilms). INPACT includes four leading academic partners (from Portugal, Spain, Australia, and Brazil) and three consolidated biotech SMEs (one from Portugal and two Spain).
In addition to the R&D project itself, INPACT involves at the highest possible level a top business school in Europe (IESE, Barcelona, Spain), a consolidated media partner specialised in science communication (Ciencia Hoje, Rio de Janeiro, Brazil) and experts in international science funding from one of the top US universities (University of Stanford). The consortium will be the perfect environment for young researchers to acquire knowledge and skills in science, technology, entrepreneurship, business, and communication so they can pro-actively tailor their career path in a life-long learning perspective. This is a contribution towards the advancement of Europe through the use of research and education for societal development and economic growth.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
EIT Health is one of the most recent Knowledge and Innovation Communities (KICs) of the EIT (European Institute for Innovation & Technology). Its goal is to improve the sustainability of healthcare systems, promote healthy living and active ageing and enhance the overall wellbeing of people across Europe.
EIT Health brings together more than 130 leading organizations (higher education institutions, research labs and companies from key areas of healthcare as well as healthcare providers, public authorities and municipalities) to form dynamic cross-border partnerships that develop innovative products and services, start new companies, and train a new generation of entrepreneurs. EIT Health partners are organized in six co-location centers in UK/Ireland, Scandinavia, Spain, France, Germany/Switzerland and Belgium/Netherlands and also supported by the EIT Health InnoStars regional clusters (from Croatia, Hungary, Poland, Portugal, Italy, and Wales).
Other competitive projects financed by the European Union
IESE Faculty: Prof. Thomas Maximilian Klueter, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The EuroTeQ Engineering University builds on the conviction that current societal and technological developments call for a paradigm shift in the engineering education of the future. We bridge scientific disciplines, educational systems and national borders to re-engineer learning and teaching at our universities and as such redefine the engineering profession in a European context. The EuroTeQ consortium consisting of six leading Universities of Science and Technology strategically expands to two highly respected business schools to increase our impact on society. Our eight partners are spread across Europe, each situated in innovation ecosystems, and build on extensive collaboration experience. Four core missions are central to EuroTeQ2030: (1) Build the EuroTeQ Campus, to create flexible learning paths and seamless, diversified mobility for our students. (2) Advance the EuroTeQ Collider, to integrate stakeholders and learners from all sectors in a unique, international challenge-based learning experience. (3) Boost the EuroTeQ Professional to open-up agile lifelong learning paths, promoting a strengthened European identity in our technology-driven, highly dynamic environment. And (4) Promote
the EuroTeQ (Collaboration) Hub to ensure continuous scientific guidance through design-based research, bridging the gap between educational research and pedagogical practice. Two cross-cutting work packages interconnect the core missions and support the effective
and efficient project implementation and outreach: a) Execute the EuroTeQ Management with a focus on continuous monitoring, change management and sustainability and b) Expand the EuroTeQ Outreach with a focus on strong key messages, institutional and societal impact. It is our ambition to develop a diversified partnership with flexible entry points for new partners in the future and by doing so become a role model for the European Higher Education Area and beyond.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Thomas Maximilian Klueter, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The Futures of Innovation and Technology Digital Innovation Hub (FIT EDIH 2.0) will accelerate digital transformation and the adoption of Artificial Intelligence (AI) across Romania’s Centru Region and select high-level public sector organizations (PSOs) in Bucharest- Ilfov. Building on the success of FIT EDIH 1.0, this new phase expands its scope and depth by delivering a comprehensive support package tailored to regional SMEs and PSOs. The hub’s services cover “test before invest” experimentation, modular AI and digital skills training, funding advisory, and innovation ecosystem building. A strong focus is placed on responsible uptake of sovereign European AI technologies—such as Mistral 7B, Aleph Alpha models, and BLOOM—and integration with EU-level infrastructures like the AI-on- Demand platform, AI Factories, and TEFs. By the end of the project, over 100 beneficiaries (approximately 70 SMEs and 30 PSOs) will have advanced their digital maturity, deployed AI-enabled solutions, and accessed follow-on investment. FIT EDIH 2.0 positions the Centru Region as a dynamic AI-driven innovation ecosystem and a key contributor to the objectives of the Digital Europe Programme.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Tawfiq Alashoor
The project aims to enhance digital competencies by developing modular learning resources on digital thread technologies, connected systems, and MES in the manufacturing sector. It seeks to build digital resilience by co-developing strategies with partners to address region-specific needs. Additionally, it will implement a collaborative learning framework combining online sessions and local showcase workshop at AIM Centre to make resources accessible and adaptable to diverse learners.
The project will involve monthly partner meetings for planning, followed by research in each country to identify industry needs. Based on these findings, three collaborative online training sessions will be developed, focusing on key topics in digital manufacturing. A public event and workshop will showcase the developed content. Dissemination activities, including press releases and social media campaigns, will promote the resources and engage stakeholders across all regions.
Expected results include the creation of digital learning modules that will engage over 150 learners and professionals, enhancing their understanding of digital transformation. A sustainable digital learning platform will be established to support continuous knowledge exchange. The project will also launch an online collaboration network and organise events to showcase the results, promoting ongoing adoption and impact in vocational education and industry.
“This project has received funding from the Erasmus+ Programme (Regulation (EU) 2021/817of the European Parliament and of the Council of 20 May 2021 establishing ‘Erasmus+’: the Union programme for education and training, youth and sport and repealing Regulation (EU) No 1288/2013.”
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The EIC Scaling Club’s mission is to grow Europe’s tech success stories. It is to be the home where 100 selected European deep-tech scale-ups, their investors and stakeholders collaborate to develop market opportunities and contribute to a better world. It will deliver 6 sets of services to its members over a period of 3.5 years:
– Engage the most active investors, corporations, agencies, clusters and media and mentors
– Grow the value of the 100 selected member companies with a best-in-class venture mentoring programme;
– Facilitate the financing, partnering and hiring of talent through a curated roadshow of events
– Share the inspirational success stories of the scale-ups
– Develop relationships with the key institutions at EU and Member States
– Manage the Club to aself-sustainable future
The Club is led by 6 complementary partners who believe that Europe isa technology and unicorn powerhouse with a purpose. Its deep tech sale-upsare at work to bring solutions to the world’s biggest challenges.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
The main objective the EU-LAC Digital Accelerator initiative is to contribute to innovation and digital transformation of the Latin American and Caribbean (LAC) region by accelerating multi-stakeholder and private sector collaboration, competitiveness, digital skills, innovation and joint ventures between European and Latin American/Caribbean businesses in the digital area.
This objective is realised through the design and deployment of the “EU-LAC Digital Accelerator”, which will perform the following activities:
- Establish high potential digital areas for collaboration opportunities jointly with EU MS and LAC partners.
- Generate entrepreneurial projects benefitting from the collaboration of partners from EU and LAC the selected areas.
- Facilitate the collaboration and develop sound business cases through the provision of acceleration services tailored to the needs of each project.
- Bring digital projects to an investor-ready level and connect them with relevant public and private investors to financially enable businesses.
The expected impact of the action is to accelerate digital transformation in Latin America and the Caribbean in two main ways:
- Comprehensive and mutually beneficial engagement on digital issues between EU and LAC
- Strengthening the EU’s role as a key partner and player in the digital area in LAC
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Public awareness to environmental risk is key for building resilient societies. ArtEmis will develop a smart sensor system, monitoring radon, temperature, acidity and other observables in groundwater in real time. The ground-breaking sensor design will assure affordability, resilience and low power consumption optimizing life cycle management. The project aims to produce 100-200 sensors, that will be deployed in sensitive sites in collaboration with municipalities. Changes in radon concentration have the potential to serve as precursor for earthquakes and volcano eruptions. To advance our knowledge in this field we propose the development of a cheap sensor system, that can be employed on a large scale in earthquake prone areas of Europe. The real time collected data is used to build machine learning (ML) models for the analysis. The collected and AI processed data will generate a real time map of hydrological and geochemical changes that is shared to the scientific community and public bodies engaged in the project. A pilot project engaging citizens of the participating municipalities is part of the dissemination and exploitation activities. We expect artEmis to clarify the longstanding issue of earthquake predictions by means of geochemical precursors like changes in radon concentration. The system is designed for scalability. Dissemination and exploitation activities are tailormade to ensure support and expansion of artEmis after the project’s completion. Radon content in water causes health issues and artEmis offers a novel way to monitor both content of radon as well as changes in real time that may indicate changes in flow pattern. Hence, artEmis is facilitating multi-purpose use of the sensor system. The project will result in a shift of paradigm for environmental monitoring and natural hazards and in this fashion render Europe a leading role in environmental monitoring.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Julia Prats and Prof. Christoph Zott, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
This proposal primary targets Catalan SMEs (with a special focus on manufacturing companies and technology providers), technology start-ups and public administrations. Catalonia has a strong industrial base, with 35,339 companies (99% SMEs) which represent 18,1% of Spanish industrial enterprises. Data from 2019 shows that only 16% of those companies had adopted advanced digital technologies. Additionally, Catalonia counts with more than 1,700 start-ups, (66% of Industry 4.0), facing challenges such as access to technology infrastructure, time to market and investment. In this context the Digital Innovation Hub of Catalonia (DIH4CAT) is born, as a non-profit regional innovation ecosystem formed by the main agents supporting digitisation in Catalonia and connecting the main technology infrastructure of the region to make them available for SMEs, start-ups and public administration, with the objective of accelerating technology transformation towards a more green and digital industry. The consortium is led by the Government of Catalonia and composed of 7 technology partners (RTOs and university) leading the 7 technology areas (AI, HPC, Cybersecurity, Robotics, Photonics, 3D Printing and Connectivity), 1 business school, 2 employer’s industrial associations. It is complemented with 19 Associated Partners so far which include, among others, private companies contributing with infrastructure and know-how. DIH4CAT has a clear focus on test before invest services but complements its offer with services related to innovation, ecosystem, digital skills, access to finance and business. The Consortium has also a very well-defined collaboration strategy at an international level, developed through the presence in most relevant European networks, participation in more than 50 previous relevant projects, 5 MoUs specifically developed for this call, to develop common infrastructures/services, and seamless collaboration with EEN (Catalan node is also coordinated by ACCIÓ).
Co-funded by the European Union, the Spanish Ministry of Industry and Tourism, and ACCIÓ:
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
The basis for this project is a program called Dragon’s Den, developped by SmiLe Incubator, the main applicant. The program is offered to business advisors in Skåne Sweden focusing on how to support early life science entrepreneurs how to raise capital, especially venture capital. The program is held in person. However, the challenge that the program adresses, how to attract venture capital, is not limited to Swedish startups but it is shared by the majority of European life science startups. Therefore, the overall objective of this project is to offer a new, jointly developed and jointly run digital program for business advisors and start-ups focusing on how to raise captial, mainly venture captial. The current pandemic shows the need to transfer curriculums into an elearning environment simplifying a broader inclusion of participants and decreasing the environmental impact of the program, while supporting digital transformation and imporved digital readiness and skills. In order to create a high quality program focusing on venture capital, SmiLe teams up with IESE Business School.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
WHO’s Regional Office for Europe is currently supporting different European Ministries of Health (MoH) in addressing the actual main challenges in health systems being one of those the capacity for building an effective system and structure in different levels of care that supports the health entities in matters such as service management and human resources management.
The primary goal of this work is to carry out the selection and recruitment for the managerial positions; contribute to the professionalization of the management of health services and for the creation of clear career development paths, which will contribute to increasing the visibility and attractiveness of these positions in the system; and help translate the proposed changes into actions to be implemented, monitored, evaluated, and continuously improved.
To meet this goal three different bodies/institutions are to be stablished during this project: a National Public Institution; an Accreditation Institution that will be made responsible for the accreditation of training programs in health services management; and a Center of excellence for Health Services Management; and technical assistance in health services management to improve and adapt the existing training programmes is to be performed.
To respond to the presented challenge four renowned institutions, with complementary knowledge, strengths, and missions joined in a Consortium. Three of them are Universities – Nova National School of Public Health (Nova NSPH, hereafter NOVA) – the Lead Organization, IESE Business School (hereafter IESE), and University of Milan (hereafter UNIMI) and the other is a European association – the European Health Management Association (hereafter EHMA).
IESE Faculty: Prof. Juan Roure, Prof. Julia Prats, Juan Luis Segurado and Amparo de San José
WA4E is an ambitious programme contributing to increase the number of Women Business Angels (WBAs) Europe, and to facilitate the funding of Women Entrepreneurs (WEs) by Business Angels in 6 target Countries (France, UK, Italy, Spain, Belgium, Portugal). WA4E builds on the deep experience of the partners that represent 4 Business Angels networks (Angel Academe, Be Angels, Femme Business Angels, IESE business angels network) of which one is completely composed by WBAs, 2 BA federations (UKBAA, IBAN) and 1 non- for- profit association of women entrepreneurs. The Consortium is led by BAE which is the European association grouping the most developed BA federations in Europe and representing 90% of the total European angel financing market. WA4E expects to mobilise more than €2,5mln as investments made by WBAs through the organisation of 42 pitching events and to increase the number of WBAs by 10% in the target Countries through the implementation of a dedicated training and mentoring programme. Such programme will be tailored for women on the basis of a deep research action (surveys and interviews) aimed at better understanding needs and constraints hampering participation of women to angel investing activities. WA4E will deliver also specific training sessions to WEs to better prepare them to meet investors expectations and to improve presentation capacities to access angel financing. Finally WA4E will implement communication, dissemination and networking activities for WBAa and WEs to facilitate their collaboration and exchange of best practices and investment opportunities. This will be done through the interaction with the WEGate platform and the use of a social media strategy.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Fabrizio Ferraro and Prof. Heinrich Liechtenstein
In recent years a growing number of investors has been seeking opportunities for financial investments that produce social or environmental benefits. As the phenomenon of investing in private enterprises that aim to contribute to solving social and environmental problems has been growing, impact investing has emerged as “an investment approach that intentionally seeks to create both financial return and positive social or environmental impact that is actively measured” (World Economic Forum, 2013: 7).
While the rapid growth of the field of impact investing has soon been accompanied by the question about how to measure and assess impact, a more fundamental question about how impact investing firms define impact and attempt to incorporate considerations of impact into the overall investment decision-making has not been exhaustively addressed yet.
The Study: In order to advance our understanding on how impact is defined by impact investors and on how firms actually attend to the tension between social and business goals, the study aims to explore the process of impact integration by analyzing its nature, dynamics and mechanisms. In particular, by studying experienced impact investing firms, and by observing this process at different levels (venture firm, fund, portfolio firm), we aim to:
• analyze how impact-focused investors formulate impact objectives in their investment process, monitor the achievement of these objectives, and manage the investments made in terms of impact;
• analyze how impact investors cope with the often conflicting demands they face from their multiple stakeholders and explore the governance, organization and tools they deploy to cope with the complexity;
• understand how impact and financial aspects are connected and identify the elements that relax or stress the tension between diverse objectives.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Antonio Dávila, Mathieu Carenzo and Kandarp Harsiddh Mehta, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
Partner institutions: META Group, Semmelweis, GEA, IESE
Creativity and innovation are the main pillars of the nowadays knowledge based economy, being one of the key elements for personal, social and economic development. As stated by the Commission “Creativity and innovation contribute to economic prosperity as well as to social and individual wellbeing.”
Promote such skills and attitude is of crucial importance for Europe, and education and training should be the elective vehicle for instilling in young and adult learners such attitudes as well as the skills to manage the innovation process or to look at traditional businesses with innovative and creative approaches.
The scope of the proposal is therefore to improve the quality of the existing vocational training offer in Hungary Slovenia and Italy by transferring and adapting to regional contexts, an existing and tested training programme for Creativity and Innovation developed by the IESE Business School.
Partner institutions: IESE (Coordinator); Clusterland Oberösterreich GmbH; VDI/VDE Innovation + Technik GmbH; MFG Innovation Agency for ICT and Media (Baden-Wurttemberg), Association Club des Districts Industriels Français; Baltic Innovation Agency; CROATIAN EMPLOYERS’ ASSOCIATION; ecoplus. The Business Agency of Lower Austria Ltd.; CONFEDERATION OF HUNGARIAN EMPLOYERS AND INDUSTRIALISTS; Innovasjon Norge, ACC10, Suddansk Universitet, Europa InterClusters, Generalitat de Catalunya
Cluster-Excellence.eu puts together the most experienced persons and organisations in Europe to identify and set up a meaningful set of quality indicators and peer-assessment procedures for cluster management. The intention is to develop training materials and set up an approach for quality labelling of cluster management, in order to help cluster managers achieve high levels of excellence in their duties and to succeed in the peer-assessments. Cluster-Excellence.eu will then create and act as a club of professionals and institutions, to promote cluster management excellence, and diffuse the adoption of the Quality Label among its members.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Antonio Dávila and Mathieu Carenzo, Entrepreneurship and Innovation Center (EIC)
Partner institutions: Advancis, Leaders2B, Danmar Computers, RSM
REDIVE is a Life Long Learning Program Leonardo project that aims ultimately at improving the multi-cultural recruitment processes in EU companies to increase the effectiveness of workforce diversity, by addressing the problems/challenges: Lack of awareness on the incorporation of workforce diversity in corporate strategy, Limited skills and knowledge on culture and diversity by HR and recruitment professionals, Gap in the market with regard to training on culture and workforce diversity.
The 7th Framework Programme
IESE Faculty: Prof. Nuria Mas, Prof. Alfredo Pastor, Magda Rosenmöller and Prof. Jaume Ribera, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Partner institutions: Ascora GmbH (ASC), Atos Spain SA, Tempos 21 Innovación en Aplicaciones Móviles S.A., Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, Asociación de Investigación de la Industria Textil (AITEX), Technische Universität Darmstadt, Stichting Nationaal Ouderenfond, Talkamatic AB, E-SENIORS : initiation des seniors aux TIC, Tie Nederland B.V.
In an optimal society, elderly people will be able to live at their own homes with the possibility to act independently and to actively participate in society. The ALFRED proposal will contribute to this goal by providing a personal and interactive assistant for elderly people. ALFRED will foster independent living and active ageing, integrating interactive services for elderly people and for care-takers. It will prevail age-related physical and cognitive impairments through the effective use of ICT and the better coordination of care processes.
In order to achieve those objectives, the project will create a virtual, interactive assistant for elderly people. This assistant will be realized as a mobile device running on day-to-day Android smartphones allowing a wide impact of the project results. ALFRED will be fully voice-controlled and combine latest scientific research results from mobile development, data management, context aware services, speech recognition and personal data management, combined with activities from behavioural and social science.
In one sentence: ALFRED will realize a mobile, personalized Butler for elderly people helping them to stay independent, to coordinate with caregivers and to foster the active participation in society. ALFRED will be fully voice controlled and could – from a user perspective – also be described as “Siri for supporting elderly people” but with an open and extendable app background and with a clear and precise focus on improving the life of elderly people. Developers will be able to contribute new “Health Apps” to ALFRED extending the platform and generating new added value.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Miguel Antón
Partner institutions: Individual
The information in banks’ balance sheet has long been neglected in important areas of Macroeconomics and Finance. The latest financial crisis has shown however that banks’ balance sheet positions provide essential information to understand bank dynamics, systemic risk, the monetary policy transmission mechanism as well as their market valuation. While these are all important topics, they are typically treated separately in the banking-macro-finance literature. The aim of this project is to draw on the wealth of information present in commercial bank and bank holding companies balance sheets in order to shed light on their empirical implications for these key macro-finance developments. We will also examine the role that banking capital regulation plays on their market valuations at the micro level as well as on the transmission of monetary policy to the real economy.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Gaizka Ormazabal
Partner institutions: Individual
The purpose of this project is to follow up with a line of research on the role of corporate governance I started at Stanford University during my PhD at the Graduate School of Business. With the support of the Rock Center for Corporate Governance, I have explored different aspects of corporate governance and their regulatory implications. In papers coauthored with leading researchers from Stanford, Wharton and Harvard, I am exploring several aspects of the potential role of corporate governance on the financial crisis such as the role of corporate boards on risk oversight, the role of credit rating agencies and executive risk-taking incentives in the securitization process, insider trading activity around the financial crisis, the market reaction to corporate governance regulation, and the role of proxy advisory firms in stock option exchanges. Some of this work has been published or is under review at top-tier economics journals. There is still much to learn about whether the financial crisis could have been avoided or mitigated by appropriate incentives and monitoring mechanisms, and about which corporate governance practices affect outcomes important to investors. In conjunction with my American colleagues, I will keep exploring the multidimensional nature of corporate governance and financial regulation and hopefully will also keep publishing papers at leading scientific journals in the areas of Finance and Accounting. This research project is also an opportunity to strengthen the cooperation between European and American business schools in a joint effort to better understand the causes and consequences of the recent financial upheaval.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Morten Olsen
Partner institutions: Individual
Over the last 10 years the use of Special Trade Preferences – the granting of lower import tariffs to specific countries – has increasingly been used as a tool to encourage development in developing countries, primarily in Africa. Yet, despite the popularity of these tools – practically all sub-Saharan countries receive some form of special trade preferences – we have little understanding of how well they work, both in terms of transferring wealth and encouraging growth. On what basis should they be evaluated? How should they be designed to be the most effective? Can they be superior to alternatives of traditional foreign aid? We seek to answer these questions in three ways. First, we develop a theoretical model that specifically allows for varying types of export goods, in particular in the use of labor and (potentially imported) inputs as requirements on the use of imported intermediated inputs is an important feature of special trade preferences. Second we use two changes in trade policy – the removal of tariffs on fabric for a number of African Countries with the African Growth and Opportunity Act (AGOA) of 2000 as well as the expiration of fabric quotas primarily for Asian competitors in 2004 – to test the predictions of the model. To test the data we will use a highly disaggregated data set containing information on volume, type of imports and price, of imports into the US from a large set of exporters. Third we design a theoretical model that allows for growth enhancing effects of policy and study optimal policy in this context. Preliminary theoretical results indicate that the current design of AGOA – with no requirements on third party inputs – encourages the production of products with a large imported share of fabric and the removal on quotas for Asian competitors in 2004 pushed African exports into cheaper exports. Both of these results find preliminary support in the data.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Massimo Maoret
Partner institutions: Individual
Organisational socialisation, or how we “acquire the social knowledge and skills necessary to assume an organisational role”, is now more relevant than ever due to current socio-economic trends that have repercussions on individuals, organisations and the overall society. The 2008 Great Recession put the cost-structures of EU organisations under great stress, and failure in newcomer socialisation hinders organisations and firms due to the inability of incoming talent to perform at high levels, and to the costs associated with turnover and additional recruitment. My first objective is thus to evaluate the effectiveness of socialisation tactics in different industries and job tasks. Second, in the flat, interdependent organisations that characterise the current workplace, networks are critical in determining success. Thus, I will evaluate the development of newcomer social networks and their relationship to their performance. Results will allow workers to self-access their career and socialisation trajectory through a tool based on my scientific findings, in order to achieve higher individual performance, job satisfaction and well-being. Third, employees now transition into organisations that are highly diverse due to the increasing cross-country mobility and immigration in the EU. It then becomes relevant to evaluate the impact of demographic differences between newcomers, supervisors and colleagues on socialisation effectiveness. Socialising diverse newcomers more efficiently will foster organisational performance and prevent social discrimination by ensuring a smooth integration of individuals of different cultural origins into the workplace. To attain my research objectives I will test a new theoretical framework using statistical estimation methods on two separate large longitudinal datasets, based on survey data from the Apprentissage of French Master Grande Ecole students and archival data on the performance of professional basketball players (1985-2012).
IESE Faculty: Prof. Víctor Martínez
This project will study how to best use reactive operations in industries facing constant and unpredictable changes on demand and supply conditions. While there is general agreement that reactivity is beneficial when products are innovative, exhibit high sales uncertainty and have short life-cycles, few models explain the details of how to build and execute such strategies. This requires modeling flexible production processes, designing cost-effective dynamic stores and modeling the dynamics of demand, at the micro-level. This project will study how firms can become more reactive. First, it is important to develop richer demand models, dynamic and stochastic in nature and capable of accommodating consumer choice within the available product assortment, focusing on fashion dynamics in apparel retailing, where micro-trends will be studied. The team will collect actual sales data from companies in the industry and constitute a Fashion Observatory that will centralize information, produce periodic reports and become a world knowledge centre for the industry. Second, the team will understand how to design better dynamic store policies with building models for optimizing product assortment based on a changing set of available products, product quantities (limited to inventory availability constraints) and product prices (possibly with constraints to avoid strategic behaviour from customers) over time, focusing on the dynamic nature of the decisions. Third, the team will investigate how to build and use flexibility in production and distribution processes with special attention devoted to including operational details relevant for European manufacturers. The results will help them leverage their closer position to the EU markets. The project will create better models for reactive operations, based on analytical work and data mining. These better models and data will open new directions for academic research and can be transferred to industry practice, especially in retail but also in manufacturing.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Partner institutions: Fundació Privada Clínic per a la Recerca Biomèdica, IESE Business School, OUH Odense Universitetshospital, Lausanner University Hospital, Helsingin ja Uudenmaan sairaanhoitopiirin kuntayhtymä (Hospital District of Helsinki and Uusimaa), Sahlgrenska University Hospital, Università Cattolica del Sacro Cuore – Policlinico Universitario Agostino Gemelli, Ludwig Boltzmann Institut/e für/for Health Technology Assessment, Ankara Numune Training and Research Hospital, The National Knowledge Center for the Health Services
HTA plays a key role in promoting an efficient swift introduction and diffusion of valuable Health Technologies (HTs) thus optimising the sustainability of health care systems. The use of HTA as a part of the decision-making process at national, regional, and international levels has evolved considerably over the past 35 years. However, still an important number of good-value innovative HTs never reach clinical practice while, in many instances, others with no significant added value actually do. This situation can only be effectively overcome by approaching HTA at a hospital level, notably because hospitals are the main entry level for innovative HTs To address these challenges, the AdHopHTA project aims at strengthening the use and impact of excellent quality HTA results in hospital settings, making available pragmatic knowledge and tools to boost adoption of hospital based HTA initiatives. As a secondary aim, the project will create an adequate ecosystem where formal coordination among existing hospital based HTA initiatives and liaison with national and regional HTA agencies will flourish. AdHopHTA focuses on hospital based HTA, an area not previously addressed by EUnetHTA, and in need of greater attention due to the considerable volume of resources that hospitals mobilise around investments in HTs. Through the 7 work packages that constitute the work plan, AdHopHTA will achieve the following 4 strategic objectives: 1) To perform a critical analysis of current formally established hospital based HTA initiatives; 2) To provide with a set of principles for best practice in hospital based HTA initiatives; 3) To advance a framework for setting a collaboration among current hospital based HTA initiatives and deployment to other interested EU hospitals; and, 4) To promote the collaboration and coordination of hospital HTA initiatives with HTA National/Regional organisations and pan-European HTA initiatives (eg. EUnetHTA) The final results of the AdHopHTA Project will be the following products: a) development of guiding principles on best practices for hospital based HTA; b) an accompanying toolkit to facilitate the deployment of such principles; and, c) the design and set-up of a database for hospital based HTA products in coordination/compatibility with the POP database (EUnetHTA).
IESE Faculty: Prof. Fabrizio Ferraro
This project will study the emergence of the socially responsible investing field, with a special focus on the role that technologies, models and metrics are playing in the development of these new investing practices. The term responsible investing refers to the consideration of the impact of environmental, social and governance factors (ESG) in the choice of financial investments, and the integration of these factors in traditional financial portfolio analysis and engagement activity. This phenomenon is growing quickly: in the last two years, the assets under management held by responsible funds in Europe went from €1 trillion in 2005 to €2.7 trillion at the end of 2007. Whether or not these new practices will be effective in influencing corporate behaviour in more responsible ways remains an open question. Likewise, the supposed integration of ESG factors in traditional financial analysis will require the construction of novel metrics and valuation models, and changes in the current information infrastructure of the world of finance. This project will focus attention on three related processes: the design of novel technological and data infrastructure for responsible investing, the emergence of novel investing practices, and finally the role of engagement in the process. To explore them in depth, the project will use a multi-method study of the key players in this emerging field, and structured it around three studies: study 1 (Designing technology, models and metrics for socially responsible investing) will explore the design and deployment of a novel data and information platform in one of the leading information providers in the financial markets (Bloomberg LP); study 2 (Responsible Investment Practices) will focus on the different ways in which asset managers (Societé Generale, Unicredit, Robeco, Banca Etica) are attempting to integrate ESG factors and traditional financial analysis; finally, study 3 (The process and outcomes of engagement) will focus on the engagement process at the Interfaith Center for Corporate Responsibility, with a focus on both the practices and their outcome.
This study will contribute to our understanding of the relationship between socio-political values and financial value, and help further our sociological understanding of financial markets. At the same time, it is expected that our findings could inform the work of economists and finance scholars puzzled by the emergence of this phenomenon, and suggest changes to the theoretical models we currently use to think about the relationship between individual preferences and investment decisions. The shift towards a more responsible European economic space will also require a more responsible financial sector, and this study, by focusing on the early experimentation with this practice would also provide finance practitioners and policy-makers insights on how to develop a robust responsible investing community.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Xavier Vives, Public-Private Sector Research Center (PPSRC)
The project has two basic research themes. The first one (I) is mostly theoretical and deals with economies with private information. The second (II) is more applied and deals with competition policy. (I) Despite the rowing body of work in economies with dispersed information there are at least three important stumbling blocks in the received literature: lack of understanding of the dynamics of markets involving complementarities and information; consideration of public information as exogenous; and avoidance or extreme simplification of welfare analysis (e.g. because of the lack of a well-defined welfare benchmark and/or the presence of noise traders in the model). In the first part of the project I plan to contribute to remove these obstacles by developing the theory of games with strategic complementarities and incomplete information; introducing static and dynamic models where public information is endogenous; doing away with noise traders and replacing them by hedgers, and performing a welfare analysis with an appropriate welfare benchmark for private information economies. (II) Despite its relevance, rigorous analysis of competition policy is relatively recent. In the second part of the project I plan to advance in three directions: the study of regulation and merger policy with supply function competition and private information (with potential application to the wholesale electricity market); competition policy in R&D-intensive industries and its connection with industrial policy (with application to competition policy design in dynamic industries); and competition policy in banking (with a theoretical review of the link between competition and stability and an empirical approach to evaluate merger control practice in EU member states). The tools used will be mostly theoretical (game theory, information economics, market microstructure, industrial organization and financial intermediation theory) with the exception of the empirical project on on bank mergers.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Antonio Dávila and Mathieu Carenzo, Entrepreneurship Innovation Center (EIC)
Partner institutions: Fundosa Technosite S.A. (TECH) – Coordinator; Raising the Floor – International (RtF-I), Centre for Research and Technology Hellas/Hellenic Institute of Transport (CERTH-HIT), Centre for Research and Technology Hellas/Informatics and Telematics Institute (CERTH-ITI), Philips Consumer Lifestyle (Philips), Microsoft (MS), Mozilla (Mozilla), University of Tübingen (UTÜB), BBC (BBC), Fundación Vodafone España (FVE), Inclusive Design Research Centre OCAD University (IDRC), Technische Universität Dresden (TUD), DOMOLOGIC Home Automation GmbH (DML), Stephen Andrew (LEE FULLM), Fondazione Don Carlo Gnocchi Onlus (FDCGO), Fundació Privada Barcelona Digital Centre Tecnològic (BDIGITAL), Singular Logic (SILO), IESE Business School (IESE), Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft zur Förderung der angewandten Forschung e.V. (FhG), Universidad Politécnica de Madrid (UPM), Astea Solutions AD (ASTEA), EnLogic, Texthelp Systems Ltd (TextHelp), Omnitor AB (Omnitor), Code Factory, Opera, Serotek US, Emergya (Emergya), Höft&Wessel (H&W), Disability Now (DN), ONCE FOUNDATION (FONCE), SoVD-Landesverband Niedersachsen e.V. (SoVD)
This proposal will explore and develop some of the key techniques, technologies, and standards needed to implement a global public inclusive infrastructure. The work of this proposal will be carried out in collaboration with efforts in other countries in a coordinated and cooperative effort to explore, test, and advance the GPII concept. This proposed effort includes participants from the United States, Canada, South America, Japan, Korea, and Europe. It includes mainstream ICT industry, AT industry, academia, NGOs, consumer groups, service groups, and benevolent organizations.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Antonio Dávila and Mathieu Carenzo, Entrepreneurship Innovation Center (EIC)
Partner institutions: Ernst & Young School, Fraunhofer ICT Group, VTT, Age Platform Europe AISBL, TECH4I2 Limited, Fundation Adecco Longer life expectancies and low birth rates together impact on the demographics of the workforce. The proportion of 50 to 64 year olds in the workforce will be double in size compared to workers younger than 25 years (35 versus 17%) in the EU15. A marked paradox exists between a longer life and a shorter working life. More healthy years will be spent in retirement than in work. So, the problem is not higher life expectancies but earlier retirement. Improved health and technological advances make it possible to extend work life beyond age 65 extending independence, productivity and quality of life. Ageing–related technological innovations can help ageing to stay at work and they fall into four technological categories:
• enabling technologies (which assist people to “age in place”)
• operational technologies (which assist aging people to function in society)
• connective technologies (which assist aging people to communicate with caregivers, families and medical resources and vice versa)
• telemedicine (which allows a medical source or caregiver to monitor, diagnose and/or treat patients from a distance).
According the above concepts GOLDENWORKERS’s main objectives are: Develop an RTD roadmap for active aging at work; Create a set of realistic scenarios, based on the socioeconomic conditions that are present in the different regions of EU27; Validate scenarios and existing gaps with final users and stakeholders; Identify shared RTD roadmap (among Industry, SMEs, Unions, Users, research and academia) and concrete recommendations for covering the identified gaps and achieving the more agreed scenarios; Create expert communities to design a common RTD strategy.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Jaume Ribera, Prof. Natalia Yankovic and Magda Rosenmöller, Center for Research in Healthcare Innovation Management (CHRIM)
Partner institutions: German Technical Cooperation GTZ, IESE, University of Witwatersrand, University of Nairobi, Ifakara Health Institute, National School of PH (Sergio Arouca, Oswaldo Cruz F.), Instituto Nacional de Salud Publica, Universidad Nacional de Colombia, Council on Health Research for Development, London School of Hygiene and Tropical Medicine, University of Geneva
RC4H&SD will build, strengthen and link research capacities for health and its social determinants in different partner countries in Africa, Latin America and in Europe. A sound mapping exercise of (i) social determinants of health (SDH); (ii) national and global stakeholders in the research environment, and (iii) existing research capacities and initiatives in the participating countries will be the basis for innovative and broad research capacity building, as an integral part of research system strengthening and with a particular focus on research management and research methodology relevant to comprehensively address social determinants of health. Accordingly, links between research and policy will be forged, and social determinants of health will be addressed from an interdisciplinary and cross-sectoral perspective to create a sustainable and attractive research landscape.
By developing a concept for, and piloting specific capacity building measures on individual, institutional and system level, RC4H&SD will contribute to research system strengthening and to the creation of research landscapes that enable and impulse locally relevant, interdisciplinary, social justice and equity promoting research, particularly by young researchers, that is taken up by policy makers.
RC4H&SD will have an important impact as it will lead to enhanced capacities for conducting and managing research on SDH and communicating research results, forge links between research, policy and practice and contribute to defining the SDH global and national research and policy agenda.
IESE Faculty: Prof. Joan Fontrodona and Steven MacGregor, Center for Business in Society (CBS)
Partner institutions: Öko-Institut e.V. – Institute for Applied Ecology (coordinator), Copenhagen Business School, European Academy of Business in Society, Foundation CentERdata, Katholieke Universiteit Leuven / Center for Economics and Ethics, Central European University, Helsinki School of Economics, Nottingham University Business School, INSEAD The Business School for the World, Institute for Social-Ecological Research, Akademia Leona Koźmińskiego, MIP Politecnico di Milano, Tilburg University, Vienna University of Economics, ZEW – Centre for European Economic Research and Business, IESE Business School, Vlerick Leuven Gent Management School
Corporate Social Responsibility (CSR) assumes greater practical significance and political relevance in the EU. A central concern is the extent to which CSR delivers benefits for economies, societies and the environment, providing a business contribution to the EU’s policies for growth, competitiveness, better jobs (Lisbon Strategy) and sustainable development (Gothenburg strategy). By contrast there is little empirical evidence on the impacts of CSR practices on company performance and the wider economy, or the social and environmental fabric of Europe, its nations and regions. There are no widely applied tools and methods that provide valid and representative assessments of the impacts of CSR.
The IMPACT project addresses these gaps in knowledge. The project uses a common conceptual framework to develop and apply tools that enable assessment and comparison of CSR impacts – at micro (company), meso (sectoral and regional) and macro levels (nations states and EU). Indicators will be developed to assess the contribution of CSR impacts on EU policy objectives, for growth, competitiveness (including innovation), quality of jobs and environmental sustainability. A large-scale inter- and transdisciplinary empirical investigation will be carried out using four complementary methods: econometric analysis, company case studies, an analysis of different company and industrial networks and a Delphi study.
Projects financed by national and regional authorities
Plan estatal de investigación científica y técnica y de innovación 2013-2016
Convocatoria 2016
Referencia: ECO2016-75059-R
Título: OIDSE – ¿Con lucro o sin lucro? Dinámicas de Identidad Organizativa en el Emprendimiento Social
Investigador Principal: Nino Vaccaro
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 14.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 30/12/2016 – 29/12/2019
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: ECO2016-77579-C3-1-P
Título: COMUNICA – Sobre la estrategia corporativa de comunicación financiero-contable: elecciones y objetivos
Investigador Principal: Fernando Peñalva
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 12.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 30/12/2016 – 31/12/2020
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: ECO2016-79894-R
Título: “SUSTCITIES – Ciudades Sostenibles: Retos y Oportunidades en la creación de ciudades económicamente prósperas, medioambientalmente
responsables y socialmente justas”
Investigador Principal: J. E. Ricart /P. Berrone
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 26.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 30/12/2016 – 29/12/2019
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: ECO2016-75905-R
Título: OnlineNets – Tratamiento de la Información y Distribución de Recursos en los Mercados y Redes Online
Investigador Principal: Mihalis Markakis
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 9.680,00 €
Período de ejecución: 30/12/2016 – 29/12/2019
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2017
Referencia: ECO2017-84016-P
Título: FRICTIONS- Análisis empírico de los efectos de las fricciones económicas, financieras e informativas sobre el comportamiento de la empresa
Investigador Principal: Stefano Sacchetto
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 5.400,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2018 – 31/12/2020
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: ECO2017-88576-R
Título: Transformación – Caso práctico de la transformación digital en Europa
Investigador Principal: Robert Gregory \ Eugeny Kaganer
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 20.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2018 – 31/12/2021
Duración: 4 años
Convocatoria 2017
Referencia: RYC-2017-23656
Investigador Principal: Mihalis Markakis
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 208.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/02/2019 – 31/01/2024
Duración: 5 años
Plan estatal de investigación científica y técnica y de innovación 2017-2020
Convocatoria 2018
Referencia: PGC2018-094418-B-I00
Título: ProTeIn-R- Cómo beneficiarse de la innovación tecnológica y la competencia
Investigador Principal: Bruno Cassiman \ David Wehrheim
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 31.300,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2022
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: PGC2018-096325-B-I00
Título: IOFIM – La economía industrial de los mercados financieros
Investigador Principal: Xavier Vives
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 40.300,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2021
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PGC2018-097335-A-I00
Título: CoCoREB – Competencia vs Concentración en el sector inmobiliario y la banca
Investigador Principal: Carles Vergara
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 45.800,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2022
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: PGC2018-098488-A-I00
Título: Desarrollar las aptitudes especializadas de los empleados en las pequeñas y medianas empresas (PYME): el papel de la gobernanza y la diversidad de género en el liderazgo)
Investigador Principal: Jeroen Neckebrouck
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 20.100,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2019 – 31/12/2021
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2019
Referencia: PID2019-104375GB-I00
Título: EISE – Evaluación e impacto de las empresas sociales-
Investigador Principal: Fabrizio Ferraro
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 6.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/06/2020 – 31/05/2023
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2019-104246GA-I00
Título: RAforQL – Las pérdidas cualitativas, y la aversión al riesgo
Investigador Principal: Johannes Müller-Trede
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 16.500,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/06/2020 – 31/05/2023
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2019-111143GB-C31
Título: MULTI-ACCOUNT – Multifaceted accounting: From keeping a healthy financial system to ESG reporting
Investigador Principal: Fernando Peñalva /Miguel Duro
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 48.700,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/06/2020 – 31/01/2025
Duración: 56 meses
Referencia: PID2019-103897GB-I00
Título: CULTURCOGNITION – Las experiencias multiculturales y el pensamiento de directivos: Estudiar las decisiones directivas y sus consecuencias, y diseñar una intervención para la educación directiva
Investigador Principal: Sebastian Reiche /Sebastian Hafenbrädl
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 18.100,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/06/2020 – 31/05/2023
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2019-104679RB-I00
Título: CITY-SDG – Los Objetivos de Desarrollo Sostenible: Cómo organizaciones y ciudades puedes contribuir a su avance
Investigador Principal: Pascual Berrone
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 17.700,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/06/2020 – 31/05/2023
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2020
Referencia: PID2020-112792GA-I00
Título: ProsocialWork – Trabajo prosocial: comprender y estimular el deseo de proteger, y promover el bienestar de los demás y de la sociedad
Investigador Principal: Sebastien Brion \ Iñigo Gallo
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 22.940,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2024
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2020-112957RA-I00
Título: ETC – Comercialización de tecnologías emergentes
Investigador Principal: Thomas Klueter
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 31.470,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2025
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: PID2020-116135GB-I00
Título: DATACOMPETITIVE – Ventaja competitiva basada en datos: usos de la información
Investigador Principal: Victor Martínez de Albéniz /Mihalis Markakis
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 61.320,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2024
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2020-113259RA-I00
Título: EnvEnt – Un examen profundo del emprendimiento ambiental: determinantes, resultados y nuevas direcciones de investigación
Investigador Principal: Desireé Pacheco
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 11.560,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2024
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2020-115069GB-I00
Título: DISCLOSURE – Análisis empírico de los efectos económicos y financieros de la divulgación de información privada de las empresas
Investigador Principal: Stefano Sacchetto
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 41.420,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2024
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2020-118807RB-I00
Título: AI MGMT – Dirección inteligente: el impacto de la adopción de la IA en el desempeño empresarial y el futuro profesional
Investigador Principal: Sampsa Samila / Marta Elvira
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 30.050,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2024
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2020-118803GB-I00
Título: IGNITE – Diseño de sistemas de clasificación
Investigador Principal: Christoph Schneider
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 8.720,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2021 – 31/08/2025
Duración: 4 años
Convocatoria 2019
Referencia: FJC2019-042215-I
Título: Comportamiento consumidor hacia sostenibilidad y responsabilidad social en comercio minorista
Investigador Principal: Anna Saez de Tejada
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 50.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/10/2020 – 30/09/2022
Duración: 2 años
Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2021-2023
Convocatoria 2021
Referencia: PID2021-123113NB-I00
Título: TECINFOMS – Tecnología, Información y estructura de mercado
Investigador Principal: Xavier Vives
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 57.720,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2022 – 31/08/2025
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2021
Referencia: TED2021-131238B-I00
Título: Adaptación y mitigación del cambio climático a través del emprendimiento y el sector financiero
Investigadores Principales: Carles Vergara / Desirée Pacheco
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 70.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/12/2022 hasta 30/11/2024
Duración: 2 años
Referencia: TED2021-132531B-I00
Título: ¿Cómo reformar la información corporativa y los sistemas de incentivos para lograr cero emisiones netas para el 2050?
Investigadores Principales: Gaizka Ormazabal / Miguel Duro
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 121.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/12/2022 hasta 30/11/2024
Duración: 2 años
Convocatoria 2022
Referencia: PID2022-142665NB-I00
Título: COMMOWN – Perspectiva global de la propiedad común
Investigador Principal: Miguel Antón
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 48.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2023 – 31/08/2026
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2022-137744NA-I00
Título: Rescates bancarios y concentración de activo
Investigador Principal: Christian Eufinger
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 34.300,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2023 – 31/08/2026
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2022-143016NB-I00
Título: DISCLOSURE – Los efectos cascada de la información no financiera a través de la cadena de suministros
Investigador Principal: Gaizka Ormazabal
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 42.500,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2023 – 31/08/2026
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2022-143166NA-I00
Título: Sustainable – Precio Sustentable
Investigador Principal: Diego Aparicio
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 11.100,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/01/2023 – 31/08/2025
Duración: 2 años
Convocatoria 2023
Referencia: PID2023-148643NB-I00
Título: Fomentando la diversidad, combatiendo estigmas y estereotipos
Investigador Principal: Elena Reutskaja
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 44.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2024 – 31/08/2027
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2023-149033NA-I00
Título: Realidad compartida: una herramienta estratégica y versátil para fomentar el significado del trabajo, el comportamiento prosocial y el rendimiento
Investigador Principal: Maya Rossignac-Milon
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 35.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2024 – 31/08/2028
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: PID2023-150744NB-C41
Título: TRACC-GLOBAL – El papel de la contabilidad en los desafíos globales de la humanidad
Investigador Principal: Fernando Peñalva / Miguel Duro
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 91.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2024 – 31/08/2028
Duración: 4 años
Referencia: PID2023-152086NA-I00
Título: WFAP – Factores débiles en la valoración de activos
Investigador Principal: Valentina Raponi
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 25.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2024 – 31/08/2027
Duración: 3 años
Plan Estatal de Investigación Científica y Técnica y de Innovación 2024-2027
Convocatoria 2024
Referencia: PID2024-155952NB-I00
Título: FCRFB- Riesgo de ciberseguridad y comportamiento de las empresas.
Investigador Principal: David Wehrheim
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 46.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2025 – 31/08/2028
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2024-157475NB-I00
Título: RMPFGD – Gestión Empresarial y Governancia en Tiempos de Recesión.
Investigador Principal: Ricard Gil
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 27.500,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2025 – 31/08/2028
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2024-157369NB-I00
Título: STAKE-CRISIS – El Papel de los Diferentes Stakeholders en la Lucha contra la Crisis de Sostenibilidad.
Investigador Principal: Carles Vergara
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 62.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2025 – 31/08/2028
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2025
Referencia: PID2025-169203NB-I00
Título: CROSSECTOR. Tendiendo puentes entre las organizaciones sin ánimo de lucro y las empresas: cómo la dinámica intersectorial del activismo social, el liderazgo y la equidad en el lugar de trabajo
Investigador Principal: Massimo Maoret
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 45.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2026 – 31/08/2029
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2025-175190OB-I00
Título: TSDAI. El dilema social de la IA: cooperación, moralidad y transformación organizativa
Investigador Principal: Sebastian Hafenbrädl
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 24.500,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2026 – 31/08/2029
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2025-176345NB-I00
Título: IFIM. Fricciones de información en los mercados, el bienestar y la regulación
Investigador Principal: Xavier Vives
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 61.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2026 – 31/08/2029
Duración: 3 años
Referencia: PID2025-176595NA-I00
Título: Soledad, identidad y polarización: un enfoque de marketing conductual
Investigador Principal: Daniel Mirny
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 39.000,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/09/2026 – 31/08/2029
Duración: 3 años
Convocatoria 2024. Ayudas Juan de la Cierva
Referencia: JDC2024-053113-I
Título: Redistributive effects of inflation
Investigador Principal: Marc de la Barrera i Bardalet
Presupuesto concedido (CD): 76.600,00 €
Período de ejecución: 01/11/2025 – 31/10/2027
Duración: 2 años
Programa Beatriu de Pinós
Funding Body: Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya; Agència de Gestió d’ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca
Reference: BP2024 – 00041
Title: WIT -To Have or Not to Have Children? Understanding and Counteracting the Impact of Work Identity Threats on Women’s Childbearing Intentions
IESE Faculty: Maïlys George
(Supervisor: Prof. Sebastian Reiche)
Execution period: 01/02/2026 – 31/01/2029
Duration: 3 años
Existing identity threat research focuses on negative workplace experiences that trigger threats. Research has yet to determine the antecedents to identity opportunities. WIT pinpoints both negative and positive triggers of threat and uncovers the antecedents to identity opportunity in potential mothers. By advancing interdisciplinary research on identity threats, it will reveal how overlooked workplace dynamics uniquely shape opportunities and challenges for women of childbearing age. WIT advances scholarship on identity threat reduction (OB2) by addressing the above four limitations. It will design and test a threat-reduction intervention alongside an opportunity-enhancement intervention, leveraging strategies like belief-based approaches (Liu et al., 2021) and insights from positive organizational scholarship.
Funding Body: Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya; Agència de Gestió d’ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca with support from the Marie Skłodowska-Curie COFUND programme (BP3, contract no. 801370) under the H2020 programme.
Reference: 2018 BP 00185
Title: Where should I live within a city? The microdynamics of Quality of Life
IESE Faculty: Valentina Raponi
(Supervisor: Prof. Victor Martínez de Albéniz)
Execution period: 01/02/2020 – 31/01/2023
Duration: 3 años
The purpose of this project is to explore the interrelationships between geo-localized variables in different parts of the city and over time and establish causal relationships between them, which go beyond their correlation. The study considers not only the individual or family effect but also the effects on the community (neighborhood effects). To do this, we have already collected a series of data for the city of Barcelona in the period 2008-2018.
Funding Body: Departament d’Empresa i Coneixement, Generalitat de Catalunya; Agència de Gestió d’ajuts Universitaris i de Recerca
Reference: BP 2016 00358
Title: COI-Common Ownership and Innovation
IESE Faculty: José Azar
(Supervisor: Prof. Xavier Vives Torrent)
Execution period: 03/07/2017 – 02/07/2019
Duration: 2 años
We started the project, planning to study the effects of market concentration, including common ownership by institutional investors, on competitive outcomes, focusing on the effects of common ownership on innovation. We realized that other teams of researchers had already advanced substantially in this line of research and decided that a topic that needed more attention was labor market concentration and wages, where there was almost no research, and there could be a greater impact due to the current importance of the issues of wage stagnation and the decline in labor share.
The first approach was to use data from the CareerBuilder website to measure market concentration in geographic and occupational labor markets across the United States. We found that most markets are highly concentrated and that higher concentration is associated with lower wages, even when controlling for factors such as geographic differences in economic conditions and cost of living. We then obtained more comprehensive data from Burning Glass Technologies. The analysis, using this extended dataset, confirmed our initial results.
These results have been presented in several academic conferences and have contributed to the public debate on antitrust policy and labor markets.
Our Faculty also actively participates in other research projects financed by national and regional authorities in Spain as well as by private foundations.
To find out more about IESE’s work in this area, contact the Associate Director of the Research Projects Unit, Sofia Anisimova, on +34 932 534 200 or projects@iese.edu.