image: From left to right: Michael Dorsch, head of CEU’s Department of Public Policy; Philipp Marxgut, secretary general of CSH; and Ljubica Nedelkoska and Frank Neffke, directors of the Growth CoLab. Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Growth Lab, appears on the screen.
Credit: Complexity Science Hub
The Complexity Science Hub (CSH), Growth Lab at Harvard University, and Central European University (CEU) are launching a joint research initiative aimed at advancing global economic prosperity and sustainable growth. The Growth CoLab, hosted by CEU's Department of Public Policy, brings together the academic and policy expertise of these three organizations to address critical economic challenges.
"The Complexity Science Hub develops and uses science to solve societal problems, and economic policy is an important aspect of this. This research collaboration will help us push the frontiers of research and practice in economic policy," says CSH president Stefan Thurner.
Pioneering Public Policy Solutions
The Growth CoLab stands at the cutting edge of public policy research, bringing together scholars and policy experts from CSH, the Growth Lab, and CEU. The initiative aims to support governments in addressing their most pressing public policy concerns.
"We're super excited and eager to kick off this fantasic collaboration with the Complexity Science Hub and the Central European University," says Ricardo Hausmann, director of the Harvard Growth Lab and the Rafik Hariri Professor of the Practice of Political Economy at Harvard Kennedy School. "And I have full confidence in Frank Neffke and Ljubica Nedelkoska to lead the CoLab,” adds Hausmann. The Growth CoLab is directed by Neffke and Nedelkoska, both senior researchers at CSH.
Empowering Students
“One of our key goals is to provide students with hands-on experience in economic policy,” explains Nedelkoska. “Working alongside a multidisciplinary team that includes experts from economics, physics, and computer science, students will engage in projects ranging from economic policy in developing economies to top notch expertise in European policy issues."
"This innovative space for research and learning offers public policy students a unique opportunity to acquire hands-on skills conducting project-based, quantitative research,” adds Michael Dorsch, head of CEU’s Department of Public Policy. “Combining faculty expertise in cutting-edge quantitative methods with the energy and enthusiasm of public policy students, Growth CoLab projects will contribute to understanding contemporary economic growth and development issues.”
Focus on Displaced Ukrainians and Global Migrants’ Integration
The collaboration is already making strides. As Nedelkoska explains, the three organizations are cooperating on a research project examining the role of displaced Ukrainians in Austria and Germany and their potential impact on Ukraine’s long-term integration into the European value chains.
“In another project, CSH and the Growth Lab researchers developed measures for assessing countries' openness to immigration and the success of migrant integration. These findings are being brought to life through interactive visualizations by CSH's data visualization team, with contributions from a CEU data science student who interned with us this year," added Nedelkoska.
About CSH
The Complexity Science Hub (CSH) is Europe’s research center for the study of complex systems. We derive meaning from data from a range of disciplines – economics, medicine, ecology, and the social sciences – as a basis for actionable solutions for a better world. Established in 2015, we have grown to over 70 researchers, driven by the increasing demand to gain a genuine understanding of the networks that underlie society, from healthcare to supply chains. Through our complexity science approaches linking physics, mathematics, and computational modeling with data and network science, we develop the capacity to address today’s and tomorrow’s challenges.
About the Growth Lab
Housed at Harvard Kennedy School, the Growth Lab pushes the frontiers of economic growth and development policy research, collaborates with policymakers to design actions, and shares insights through teaching, tools, and publications. Led by Ricardo Hausmann, the Growth Lab combines pioneering academic research on the determinants of growth and its social, political, and environmental sustainability, along with place-based engagements that apply these methods to expand opportunities across the world.
About CEU
Based in Vienna since 2019, Central European University (CEU) is a private, non-profit university where students from over 100 countries study for Bachelor’s, Master’s and Doctoral degrees which are accredited in both the United States and Austria. CEU offers a wide range of degree programs in the social sciences and humanities — including economics, law, international relations, environmental sciences, philosophy, public policy, history, sociology and political science — as well as new programs in network science and cognitive science. All teaching and administration at CEU is in English. CEU takes an interdisciplinary approach to learning at all educational levels. With its participation in the Austrian Excellence Clusters “Knowledge in Crisis” and “EurAsian Transformations”, its involvement in the Complexity Science Hub, and its many successful European research grants, CEU is at the forefront of the Austrian research landscape. CEU attracts a talented student body from around the world. It is committed to fostering equal opportunities, diversity, open societies and the free exchange of opinion, and offers a range of scholarships and fellowships.