ECON researchers receive large Horizon Europe grant for research project on Global Supply Chains

Associate Professors Michael Johannes Koch and Ina Charlotte Jäkel and Professors Philipp Schröder and Frederic Warzynski are part of a research group that has received a grant of DKK 22.3 million from the Horizon Europe Work Programme for their project entitled “Rethinking Global Supply Chains: measurement, impact and policy”.

Besides the ECON researchers, the research group consists of researchers from ten other research institutes and universities from Austria, Belgium, France, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Italy, Norway and Poland.

The overall goal of the project is to enhance our understanding of the impact of global supply chains (GSCs) using new measures that can quantify the role of knowledge flows, and more generally services inputs, and thus acknowledge the increasing importance of intangibles in global production.

The project provides new and innovative methodologies for assessing the development of GSCs, which generates new knowledge on ongoing and expected changes in GSCs due to shocks. The research, both theoretical and empirical, will be conducted mainly at the level of the firm – the unit that ultimately decides on the organisation of international production.

Using the RETHINK-GSC innovative measures allows the project’s researchers and future scholars (i) to investigate the interaction between tangible and intangible GSCs to evaluate the changing nature of global supply chains, (ii) to provide novel ways of analysing the impact of GSCs on social, economic and environmental outcomes in European countries, and (iii) to evaluate the resilience of GSCs to exogenous shocks. Furthermore, the project elaborates policy scenarios for expected future GSC developments. This new evidence contributes to enhancing policy developments related to ensuring level playing fields in trade relations and ensuring security of strategic supplies.

The total grant amount is € 2,999,878 (DKK 22.3 million) and more than 10%, specifically € 312,539 (DKK 2.3 million) are dedicated to Aarhus University.

The grant will also fund a three-year postdoc, which will be shared between AU and IfW Kiel.