Author:

Keywords:

research infrastrucutre, InGRID, data, inclusive growth

Abstract:

The central question of this report is: “What are challenges that the European research community on inclusive growth needs to address to develop a European research infrastructure which will foster evidence-based policy making?” Aiming to get a broad view on this issue, a purposive, non-probability sample of European experts within different academic fields related to issues of inclusive growth was surveyed. The mainly qualitative analysis of the survey responses let to the identification of four main challenges (data, methods, the gap between policy and research and the research context) and four main recommendations linked to this: (1) Data should be the main priority: more and better data are necessary for high-quality comparative research in Europe. (2) The improvement of methods and researchers’ (methodological) skills must go hand in hand with more and better data. (3) Bridging the gap between policy and research is a challenge to be tackled both by policy makers and researchers. (4) A research context that encourages cooperation and innovation and provides the necessary resources should be stimulated. Progressing towards a European research infrastructure on inclusive growth starts with a strong focus on the data, but goes hand in hand with the development and improvement of methods, training and knowledge exchange on these data and methods and community building which includes not only the European researchers from different disciplines, but other relevant stakeholders as well and in addition to that investing (efforts and money) in building bridges and a collaborative climate between policy makers and researchers.