MICROPROD will examine the empirical observation that productivity growth in the developed world has slowed down in the past decade despite both technological innovation continuing as well as greater openness to trade. Our objective is to provide explanations to this puzzle, improving our understanding of productivity and its drivers in general as well as the way that we measure it. In bringing together top micro and macro-economists from highly reputable research institutions in both the academic and policy communities with experts from statistical agencies, MICROPROD will provide the building blocks for next generation economic policy thinking and attempts to answer the following four set of questions: 1) Do we measure productivity correctly? We will gather relevant data and improve the methodologies used to measure productivity. This will be done in a comparative European perspective and with the help of statistical authorities. 2) Do we understand all the mechanisms at work, from intangible investments to integrating into global value chains? We will increase our understanding of how these mechanisms lead to new methods of production, in the way that inputs are combined to produce outputs. 3) What are the combined effects of globalisation and technological change in terms of their distributional impacts? Newly available micro-level data will allow us to provide evidence on the channels through which globalisation and technological change interact with financial and labour market imperfections and impact on the distributions of productivity and income, with an analysis spanning both within and across countries. 4) Is the policy environment conducive to the new productivity environment? Are policies in place designed to support the new mechanisms at work and how can they be adapted in the EU context? We will examine how the general macroeconomic environment can ensure that demand meets supply and that there is adequate financing to promote investment and growth.

PILLARS offers a three-pillars framework that includes: (1) A comprehensive and empirically solid account of the combined effect of (i) past waves of automation technologies, (ii) recent trends of international fragmentation of production in Global Value Chains (GVCs) and (iii) industrial transformation of European regions on EU labour markets, in terms of employment reconfiguration, skill mismatch and migration. (2) A comprehensive set of forecasting scenarios based on the impact assessment in (1) and projection of (i) industries’ future exposure to emerging automation technologies; (ii) EU regional industrial transformation and (de)specialisation; and (iii) functional reallocation of workers along GVC and migration flows; and (iv) potential skill mismatch resulting from projections of skill demand and supply. (3) A systematic evaluation of current labour market policies, based on smart specialisation, and training policies that allows identifying areas of success and directions to be mitigated. This will lead to proposing a coherent and cohesive policy roadmap that includes a battery of action in different policy areas (innovation, trade, education and training) to achieve Pathways to Inclusive Labour Markets. PILLARS’ ambition to contribute to assess current labour market policies and co-design a new generation of policies for the future of work will be fulfilled by a consortium of top scholars, including partners from Latin America and China; an enthusiastic, international, multidisciplinary stakeholder support to the potential of PILLARS; and a top notch academic advisory board.

This project is framed under the topic "SSH aspects of the Clean-Energy Transition" and it tries to interpret the "Challengues facing the carbon intensive regions" within a multi-contextual framework: 1) the de-carbonisation policies; 2) the ongoing processes of de-territorialisation; and 3) the territorial dimension of clean energy transition. These contextual elements are presented in the project, providing an interpretation of the main research questions of the topic.: a) The de-carbonisation of coal and carbon intensive regions risks to be a cul de sac of the energy transition process. Along with this process a set of conflicts emerge and move from local to national and European level and vice-versa. One of the main ideas of the project is analysing these conflicts and the negotiation processes related to them, as well as the political cultures and discourses behind these conflicts; b) The challenges facing coal and carbon-intensive regions are studied in the light of the ongoing process at the territorial level. Another main idea of the project is to identifying the factors of de-territorialisation in action in different coal and carbon-intensive regions and to explain their dynamics and interactions; c) The clean energy transition cannot be understood only as a technological change or as an industrial shift, and it is studied as a socio-economic-psychological process affectng the life of local communities. In this respect the project is focused on the study of the coping strategies from a wide array of perspectives: A multidimensional perspective, combining different disciplinary frameworks; a comparative perspective, developing a comprehensive set of case studies; and a multilevel perspective, involving different key players at territorial, regional, national, European and global level. Each of these strategies will be developed in a specific strand of research: Theoretical strand, Analytic strand, and Pro-active strand.