Research Team

Donato Di Carlo – LUHNIP Director

Dimitri Zurstrassen – EU Industrial Policy Analyst

Ludovica Maffei – Research assistant

Giulio Petrillo – Research assistant

Network of LUHNIP's affiliated researchers

Lorenzo Moretti

Ongoing Research Projects

LUHNIP initial activities revolve around two main research pillars: one focusing on new forms of industrial policy in the European Union, the other on the resilience and recovery of the Italian economy.

After a hiring campaign during summer 2023, LUHNIP’s research activities will start from September 2023, with an eye to producing the first technical reports by spring 2024. Policy advocacy and public engagement activities will then follow based on the expertise built through the technical reports.

1st technical report: New forms of EU industrial policies

After decades of neglect, industrial policy is back on policymakers’ agendas. This is true even in the European Union, where policymakers’ focus has long been primarily on regulatory competences to ensure a level playing field in the European single market. However, to date, the new forms of EU industrial policy and the many initiatives taken by EU actors and institutions remain fragmented, often uncoordinated, and largely unaccountable to political principals across Europe.

This project aims to analyse the goals, instruments, actors and governance mechanisms and political accountability of the new EU industrial policy that has gradually been emerging in the single market since the great financial crisis. By so doing, the policy report has the ambition to develop a set of policy recommendations for a reform of EU industrial policy which shall be organisationally efficient, economically effective, socially (and geographically) inclusive and democratically accountable.

2nd technical report: Tackling state (in)capacity in the context of Italy’s recovery and resilience plan

After a past decade of austerity in Europe, the Next Generation EU has recently provided an abundance of financial resources for member states to implement investments aimed at stimulating economic growth, promoting social inclusion and the green and digital transition. Yet, two years into the implementation of its National Resilience and Recovery Fund (RRF), Italy is struggling to keep pace with the execution of the investments envisaged by the plan, especially regarding those investments whose execution is the responsibility of subnational governments. This is particularly problematic for a country in dire need to reverse two decades of fiscal austerity and declining public investments.

The project aims to study the determinants of state (in)capacity of the Italian bureacracy in the context of the National Resilience and Recovery Fund. The objective is, put simply, to

understand the reasons why subnational administrators in Italy fail to plan and execute public investments and, accordingly, to propose a very concrete set of measures that could be adopted to strengthen Italy’s institutional capacity to implement investments and industrial policy in the future.

Publications

1)  EU Industrial Policy in the Multipolar Economy

Co-edited by Dimitri Zurstrassen

This incisive book provides key interdisciplinary perspectives on the current challenges faced by EU policymakers in framing and implementing a coherent European industrial policy, employing specific case studies from the digital, automotive, steel and defence industries as well as concrete examples of EU policies.

https://www.e-elgar.com/shop/gbp/eu-industrial-policy-in-the-multipolar-economy-9781800372627.html

 

2)  Europe first? The rise of EU industrial policy promoting and protecting the single market

(Awarded among best papers by the European Union Studies Association 2022 Biennial Conference, Miami, USA)

Co-authored by Donato di Carlo

Within Europe’s regulatory state, industrial policy has largely remained within national governments’ remit. Yet, a plethora of new supra- and cross-national industrial policy initiatives have recently emerged whereby the Commission proactively engages in pan-European activities to foster innovation and economic development. This article brings the ‘Developmental Network States’ (DNS) literature into dialogue with EU integration scholarship to explain both the timing of EU industrial policy’s rise since the mid-2010s and the variation in forms of EU integration of different industrial policy functions. Our analysis suggests that the Commission increasingly operates four major developmental functions akin to DNSs and aimed at promoting and protecting the single market. Neofunctionalist theories of EU integration explain these momentous shifts. The timing behind the rise of EU industrial policy is best explained as an interplay of functional, cultivated, and political spillovers, driven especially by the Franco-German realignment on pro-EU industrial policy positions since 2016. Variation in the governance forms of integrated EU industrial policy functions is instead explained in terms of the degree of pre-existing integration of extant policies, the low vs high politics nature of the policy domain and the types of externalities attached to the specific policy area.

https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/13501763.2023.2202684

 

Monthly Briefs

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Third-party Funding and Research Grants

LUHNIP was established by Donato Di Carlo thanks to a grant from the Berlin-based think tank Dezernat Zukunft.

The grant is of EUR 424,000.00. The funding agreement was signed in spring 2023 between Donato Di Carlo, Philippa Sigl-Glöckner, Valentina Meliciani (Dean of the then Luiss School of European Political Economy) and the managing bodies of Luiss University.

The initial grant runs for two years, starting in spring 2023.

Dezernat Zukunft is a Berlin-based institute for macrofinance. It aims to explain and re-think monetary, fiscal, and economic policy in an accessible and coherent way. The articles published by this policy institute are addressed to policy makers, academics and the media with the aim of broadening public debates and supporting an inclusive process of political will formation.

Work with us

The newly established Luiss Hub for New Industrial Policy and Economic Governance (LUHNIP), a research and policy advocacy Hub located within the “Luiss Institute for European Analysis and Policy” (LEAP), invites interested candidates to send their CV and expression of interest for the following position:

1.   Two-year data analyst/scientist

Requirements 

We seek candidates with a strong commitment to research, policy advocacy and public engagement activities and the aspiration to contribute to the new activities and research agenda of LUHNIP. LUHNIP operates as a bilingual hub. Candidates shall have full professional proficiency in both English and Italian and shall be able to produce written outputs and communicate in both languages.

Ideal candidates will show a passionate drive to engage not only in academic and policy debates on EU economic governance, industrial policy and the resilience of the Italian economy, but also to engage in the dissemination of research to the wider public and in policy advocacy vis-à-vis national and international institutions and public engagement activities.

This is a call for applications for 1 position:

Data analyst/scientist:

Necessary requirements:

• Candidates shall have the capacity to work independently and proficiently with programming languages such as R, Stata, Python and will have knowledge of statistics and econometrics.

Preferred requirements:

• Ideal candidates shall have some previous experience in working in support of research teams and, preferably, a substantive research interest in topics related to economics, political economy or political science.

Role and Responsibilities

Position holders are all expected to contribute to the new research, policy advocacy and public engagement activities of LUHNIP, which will revolve around two major pillars, namely: (1) the study of new forms of EU industrial policy and (2) the study of the Italian political economy. They are expected to undertake rigorous research in their field of interest and within their specific responsibilities as part of LUHNIP’s research team directed by Dr. Donato Di Carlo. Position holders will also be invited to contribute to the collegial and intellectual life of the University and of the Luiss community at large.

The research conducted in the context of LUHNIP’s activities is primarily destined to policy-relevant material (i.e., technical reports, policy briefs, etc.). However, academic publishing related to LUHNIP’s research interests is not only possible, but also encouraged.

The initial appointment is on a fixed-term basis, for a maximum of two years, but with the possibility of an extension depending on LUHNIP’s ongoing funding campaign.

Appointments can be both part-time and full-time, to be discussed during the interviews, and the salary is competitive. There is no mandatory requirement to work in person in Rome. Remote work from abroad is possible, conditional on the requirement to be present in Luiss during important events and meetings related to LUHNIP’s activities.

Position holders will be asked to join LUHNIP as soon as possible, to be agreed upon and negotiated with LUHNIP’s director based on individual needs.

About LUHNIP and Luiss University

LUHNIP is a non-partisan, interdisciplinary hub conducting research, policy advocacy and public engagement activities on issues pertaining to industrial policy and economic governance in Europe and Italy. It was founded with a start-up grant from the Berlin-based think tank Dezernat Zukunft (DZ) in spring 2023. LUHNIP is part of the European Macro Policy Network (EMPN), a pan-European network connecting teams of researchers, think tanks and educational organisations that develop Europe’s fiscal, monetary and economic architecture.

LUHNIP combines academic and policy research with an eye to producing articles and proposals for political decision-makers, academics, the media and, more generally, the broader public. Its aim is to contribute to policy and public debates by providing technical and specialised knowledge on new forms of industrial policy and activist economic governance, with a focus on Italy, the European Union and the European Economic and Monetary Union (EMU). LUHNIP’s ongoing activities are currently centred on the elaboration of two technical reports, focusing on the analysis of newly emerging supranational forms of industrial policy in the European Single Market and the study of old and new forms of industrial policies in Italy.

LUHNIP operates within the newly established Luiss Institute for European Analysis and Policy (LEAP). LEAP carries out policy-oriented research activities in the following areas:

• policies relating to European economic governance and its institutional development, monetary policy, public finance, structure and regulation of the financial system (European economic governance);
• European industrial policies for sustainable development, green and digital transition (European industrial policy).

The think tank produces working papers and policy briefs and promotes public engagement initiatives and other forms of research dissemination in the aforementioned fields.

Luiss specializes in the Social Sciences and educates over 10,000 students in a diverse and international learning environment. The university has adopted the enquiry-based educational approach and aims at consolidating its stance in social sciences and enlarging the scope of its interests to include humanities, artificial intelligence, and security. Through its privileged relationship with Confindustria, Italy’s largest industrial association, Luiss has developed connections with the business community, government institutions, and civil society. With over 300 international partnerships, Luiss offers 60 double and triple degree programs and is an active member of important academic networks (e.g., QTEM and the European University ENGAGE.EU). Luiss is an equal opportunity and affirmative action employer. All expressions of interest will receive consideration without discrimination on any ground. Fiscal incentives are offered by the Italian law to individuals relocating from abroad.

Expression of Interest

To express your interest for the positions above, please produce a single PDF file containing the following documents:

• CV
• Brief Cover letter (indicating interest in joining LUHNIP and past pertinent activities)
• If available, copy of (maximum three) publications or working papers on topics linked to LUHNIP’s research interests, merged as a single PDF file

CLICK HERE TO APPLY

For further information, please contact directly LUHNIP’s director Dr. Donato Di Carlo at ddicarlo@luiss.it or LEAP Dean Prof. Valentina Meliciani at vmeliciani@luiss.it.

The selection procedure is on a rolling basis and interviews of suitable candidates will be held until the positions are filled.

Contacts

Luiss Hub for New Industrial Policy and Economic Governance (LUHNIP)

Luiss Institute for European Analysis and Policy