Since the Great Recession of 2008, populist parties have scored major electoral successes around Europe. Nonetheless, the populist map of Europe has mixed colors: in some countries, voters rally behind right-wing parties promising closed borders while, in others, resentment towards rising inequality has fuelled left-wing movements; some other countries have been less susceptible to populist rhetoric. Why are populist parties more successful in some places (or times) compared to others? What makes right or left populism more prominent in some countries (or after certain crises)? This project tackles these questions with the tools of behavioral political economy, a blossoming field at the intersection of behavioral economics and political economy, which applies insights from cognitive psychology and methodologies from microeconomics to understand political behavior. I will address two fundamental issues that can shed light on the puzzling pattern of support for populism: the heterogeneity and time (in)stability of preferences and cognitive abilities; and the role of limited attention in shaping preferences and information processing. First, I will focus on the demand side of the market for policies, voters. I will set up and maintain a novel longitudinal study, the European Preferences and Cognition Dataset (EPCD, Project 1), collecting repeated measures of economic preferences, social preferences and cognitive abilities for the same individuals in representative samples of European countries. Second, I will focus on the supply side, politicians. Building on the empirical evidence from the EPCD, I will develop theoretical models to explore how political candidates and elected representatives react to voters’ behavioral factors and unstable preferences (Projects 2-4). The combined output of these projects will greatly improve our understanding of European citizens' political preferences and how they affect economic and political outcomes.

The STARS project paves the way for the future EGNSS deployment in safety relevant railway applications. By evolving the highly developed and deployed ERTMS standard through the implementation of the satellite positioning functionality, it will be possible to reduce the cost of the future railway signalling systems, especially for lines with lower traffic density. The project deals with three main topics: 1) The elaboration of reference data and characterisation of the railway environment through a measurement campaign; 2) The assessment of the EGNSS performances achievable in the railway environment with the determination of the applicable requirements for the positioning system as well as the necessary evolutions of EGNSS services and ERTMS/ETCS functions and 3) Quantification of the economic benefits and specifying the possible implementation roadmap when applying the EGNSS on railways. The project is strongly linked with other initiatives and actions on the same topic in Europe. In order to feed directly into the standardization work of ERTMS, the project partners will cooperate closely with UNISIG. Moreover, the project will actively interact with NGTC (EU funded FP7) and the results will be directly implemented by SHIFT2RAIL, providing the practical demonstrators for different categories of railway tracks. The approach developed in STARS is also taking the profit of the strong know-how inherited from civil aviation, making this project as completely integrated and consistent in overall activities in Europe and worldwide, leading to the effective deployment of the satellite technologies in advanced railway signalling systems.

“Collaborative Smart Grids” (CSGs) are a promising concept built on digital technologies and economic and organizational structures, directly linked to the empowerment of consumers, the promotion of behavioural change and increased collaboration among all stakeholders. CSGs require a new vision but also innovative business models and technology developments around energy production, distribution and consumption to be successful and sustainable. The multidisciplinary and multilayer concept embedded in CSGs is essential to contribute to greener and smarter energy systems in our societies. SMARTGYsum - SMART Green energY Systems and bUsiness Models- will train 15 ESR for 36 months to enable the implementation of the Smart Energy vision, focusing on different technical and socioeconomic aspects that conform Electric Energy Systems (EESs) and CSGs, providing an excellent basis to develop their future careers in Power Electronics, Electric Engineering, Material Sciences, ICT, Data Sciences but also energy capturing of value, value chains, finance & investments, management of energy markets, economical and policy instruments, etc. As a result, there will be a network of academic and industrial partners closely collaborating following a transferable, inter and multidisciplinary approach, aimed at raising the employability and career opportunities of ESRs within the public and the private sectors, as well as their potential for conducting innovation, entrepreneurship and for impacting in the European society at medium and long-term.