An investigation on innovation policies for small and medium enterprises

1 Research Collaborator position

(Deadline January 11^th, 2021 12:00 )

Fields

Innovation policy; small and medium enterprises; start-up firms

Activity

The project aims at investigating innovation policies for small and medium enterprises. The Italian startup Act (Law 221/2012) and the Italian innovative SMEs Act (entered into force in 2015 through Italian Law 3/2015) are two notable examples. The impact of the first policy has been recently studied whereas the effect of the second policy is still underexplored. The main goal of this project is to better investigate the feature of the SMEs for which policy interventions have been effective in Italy and in other European countries, to better design future targeted interventions. The study will rely on detailed firm-level information to be analyzed by using microeconometric and machine learning methodologies.

The selected candidate will visit the MSI Department at KU Leuven. The research period in Belgium may represent a chance to get access to data on Belgian companies and interact with other scholars involved in similar topics.

Profile

The selected candidate will investigate innovation policies for small and medium enterprises. The main goal of the project is to study the feature of the SMEs for which policy interventions have been effective in Italy and in other European countries, to better design future targeted interventions. The study will rely on detailed firm-level data to be analyzed by using micro-econometric and machine learning methodologies. The ideal candidate has a record-track of publications in international peer-reviewed journals in economics or management and a good command of the main statistical software such as Stata and R.

The candidate will spend a period up to 12 months in Leuven to collaborate with our partnering institution (KU Leuven).

Formal requirements

A PhD in Economics or Management or similar fields;
Having obtained the PhD within 10 years of the Master's degree and within 5 years of the deadline for this call;
A suitable background for carrying out research activity;
An excellent knowledge of English, both spoken and written;

Specific requirements