July 5th 2006

Mas-Colell, professor of Departament of Economics and Business of UPF,is the coordinating-researcher. The Consolidating Economics (CE)project will receive a grant of six million euros over fiveyears to consolidate and enhance the impact of economics researchcarried out by researchers affiliated to Spanish institutions within aninternational academic context.

This research project is the only one of seventeenproposals selected by the Spanish Ministery of Education and Sciencein the field of social sciences. The Spanish Ministery ofEducation and Science has created the Consolider-Ingenio 2010 program,aimed at leading Spanish research groups, to substantially improve theR+D situation in Spain.

In particular, the CE project hopes to achieve an increase of 25%-over the next five years- in the bibliometric impact of paperswritten by members of the group in comparison with the previous fiveyears. This will be a considerable challenge if we take into accountthat members of the CE group were responsible for writing the greatmajority of the 58 papers originating from Spain and published in thefive most prestigious economics journals in the word during theperiod 2001-2005.

Another important aim of the group is to develop the BarcelonaGraduate School of Economics, an institution intended to promotepostgraduate studies in economics in order to lead Europe in thisfield and attract the best students and researchers in the world.

Therefore, to promote, project and organize Spanish economics researchwill be the basic tasc of Consolidating Economics, a projectcoordinated by Andreu Mas-Colell and comprising researchers from thefollowing institutions and groups:

· Departament d'Economia i Empresa (UPF)
· Centre de Recerca en Economia Internacional (CREI, UPF)
· Grups de Dret i Sociologia de la Universitat Pompeu Fabra
· Unitat de Fonaments de l'Ànalisi Econòmic (UAB)
· Institut d'Ànàlisi Econòmic (IAE, CSIC, Barcelona)
· Departament de Fonaments de l'Ànalisi Econòmic, Universitat d'Alacant
· Centro Sector Público-Privado de l'IESE, Barcelona
· Ciències Polítiques (CSIC, Barcelona)
· Departament d'Economia, Universitat Carlos III de Madrid
· Departament d'Empresa, Universitat Carlos III de Madrid
· Departament d'Historia Econòmica, Universitat Carlos III de Madrid
· Centro de Estudios Monetarios y Financieros (CEMFI, Madrid)
· Fundación de Estudios de Economía Aplicada (FEDEA, Madrid)

For more information, see the following report: "La contribuciónreciente de 'Consolidating Economics' a la investigación en economía"(pdf document, 21 pages).