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Think-net: the CEPR model of a research
network
CEPR is organised very differently from most other 'think-tanks'.
The Centre administers centrally a 'pure' network - no research
is done at the London headquarters of CEPR, where a staff
of 28 deals entirely with the development, funding and administration
of research and related activities (publications, meetings).
Researchers are based in their home institutions: universities,
research institutes, central bank research departments, and
international organisations. Thus CEPR is not a 'think-tank'
at all: rather, it is a 'think-net', an 'invisible college'
or 'multiversity'. We believe that one of our main achievements
has been to create an active, functioning community of dispersed
individual researchers throughout Europe, who collaborate
through CEPR in research activities and dissemination. In
that process, we have also convinced a large group of first-class
economists that applied economics leading to policy analysis
can be just as important as theory, and it too can enhance
professional stature.
The key issues for the establishment of a nationally and
internationally important 'think-tank' with global reach are
the following:
- How to identify the supply of good researchers.
- How to identify, perhaps to create, the demand for policy
research - who are the potential users, what do they want,
what should they want?
- What structure will best bring them together?
- How to establish and maintain independence from both funders
and policy-makers.
- How to maximise the policy impact of good research.
We believe that CEPR's experience suggests some answers to
these questions. In particular, we have sought to innovate
in:
- Organisation - creating an international network of top-ranking
academics that functions as a research community.
- Orientation - inducing the participants in that network
to devote part of their efforts to directly policy-relevant
work.
- Dissemination - with an exceptional range of publications
for different groups of users, including pure research papers
and conference volumes, policy papers, three series of policy
reports: the Bulletin, European Economic Perspectives, and
Economic Policy.
- Funding - developing a unique mix of public (national
research councils, European Commission, central banks),
foundations and corporate support.
In the near-term future we shall focus on two priorities:
- A new form of interaction that we call the 'Virtual Economics
Department' - using recent developments in computer hardware
and software to create new forms of interaction among researchers
and between them and our central administrative services.
- Further enhancing the policy relevance and impact of our
research output through more sophisticated outreach to the
policy community and media.
(Executive Summary)
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