The first Report in the series, ‘Europe's Network Industries: Conflicting Priorities (Telecommunications)’, is a particularly good example of how researchers and the users and beneficiaries of research can interact in a mutually productive way. The project, which is carried out jointly with the Swedish Centre for Business and Policy Studies
(SNS), brings together practitioners in the industry under study
with some of Europe´s leading economists in the field of industrial organization and regulation. Research users play a key role through the ‘Reference Group’, which is chaired by a leading figure from the industry under study, and which provides intellectual as well as financial
support to the research team. In the early stages of the Report’s preparation, members of the Reference Group help identify the key issues which should feature in the Report, from the perspective of both the industry and the policy-maker. The Group then comments on drafts of the Report. The research team enjoys full academic freedom in writing the Report, but the team responsible for the first Report found it invaluable to have access to a group of high-level practitioners with first-hand knowledge of the industry.
The Centre has also has played an active role in informing public policy debates in other fields. In addition to its policy reports, many of which have had a direct impact on policy, the Centre has involved UK policy-makers and government economists in many of its conferences and workshops. One example is the conference on ‘Financial Crises and Asia’, held in February 1998 at the Bank of England. The conference was organized at the request (and with the support) of policy-makers in the Foreign and Commonwealth Office, HM Treasury, the Bank of England. It provides an excellent example of how the Centre is able to react quickly to unfolding events in the policy world: the event took place within two months of the idea first being developed, and many of the leading researchers academics and policy-makers participated, along with key players from the financial community.
The Centre’s Corporate Membership programme, launched in 1994, has also played an important role in involving users and beneficiaries, by creating new
fora to encourage interaction between researcher producers and research users. These fora provide feedback from the Centre’s corporate supporters which ensure that the results of the Centre’s research address users’ needs. The Centre’s lunchtime briefings and the CEPR Economic Policy Roundtable offer two examples of these
fora. The briefings, to which corporate members, as well as other research users are invited, are informal and off the record, and aim to stimulate dialogue between researchers and members of the public. The CEPR Economic Policy Roundtable are held semi-annually, and provide a forum in which researchers, the Centre’s corporate members and senior policy-makers can debate the issues arising at the
European Council meetings. Roundtable discussions are based on solid background research carried out by the researchers.
This close relationship with users has also meant that the Centre is already active in ESRC’s thematic priorities, in particular ‘Globalisation, Regions and Emerging Markets’, ‘Governance, Regulation and Accountability’, ‘Economic Performance and Development’, ‘Social Inclusion and Exclusion’ and ‘Innovation’. The revision of these themes by ESRC in 1997 placed a focus on international and particularly European perspectives, which is a particular strength of the Centre’s activities.
The Resource Centre has been successful in providing a variety of
valuable networking, dissemination
and support activities, and disseminating
the results of research carried out by members of the UK research community in
economics and closely related disciplines.