Integrating research infrastructure for European expertise on inclusive growth from data to policy (InGRID-2)

Background

InGRID-2 is a follow-up to the successful InGRID project. With reference to the EU2020 ambition of Inclusive Growth, the objectives of the InGRID-2 project are to advance the integration and innovation of distributed social sciences research infrastructures (RI) on ‘poverty, living conditions and social policies’ as well as ‘working conditions, vulnerability and labour policies’. The focus areas are a) integrated and harmonized data, (b) links between policy and practice, and (c) indicator-building tools. In addition, networking activities will provide initiation (summer schools), in-depth discussions (expert workshops), and help to promote necessary innovations for sustainable inclusive growth.

Alongside infrastructure building, joint research activities are being conducted with a focus on extending data integrations, exploring new data linkage and sources, innovation in microsimulation tools, improving comparative policy data, and investigating new high-quality indicators.

InGRID-2 was launched at a kick-off meeting in Leuven on 1&2 June 2017. The project represents both the continuation and enlargement of the existing InGRID research infrastructure, involving a consortium of 19 European partners. The project is financed under Horizon 2020 and coordinated by HIVA (KU Leuven).

Description

ISER has a prominent role in the project consortium and is involved in several work packages that focus on the continuing development of the tax-benefit microsimulation model, EUROMOD, including:

• the incorporation into the model of a wealth module based on the integration of Household Finance and Consumption Survey (HFCS) data into the model’s existing input data;
• extension of the current scope of EUROMOD’s Hypothetical Household Tool (HHoT) via adjustments to the tool’s input data in order to include policies that have previously been difficult or impossible to simulate using cross-sectional EU-SILC data;
• extension of the model to cover maternity, paternity and other parental benefits;
• improvements to HHoT functionality, particularly in terms of its user-defined analytical outputs, tables and graphics; financial support.

Additionally, ISER is involved in:

• the organisation and delivery of expert workshops and summer schools in order to promote knowledge transfer;
• hosting visitors and researchers from other institutes and countries in its role as a centre of expertise (‘transnational access’)