Poverty, Public Policy and Inclusive Innovation: Franziska Gassmann

Dr. Franziska Gassmann, Head of our Poverty, Public Policy and Inclusive Innovation Research Theme, talks about priorities, partners, and where and how we work: http://www.merit.unu.edu/2-poverty-public-policy-and-inclusive-innovation/ Transcript: I am the leader of the research group on Poverty, Public Policies and Inclusive Innovation. It is a very broad research theme so to speak, because public policies in itself is a very broad topic but we do have some focus areas in there. If we look at the main questions that we ask, on the one hand, it is about more a methodological question: how to measure poverty and well-being in different country contexts but also for different groups in the population. We can think of low-income countries versus high income countries, we can think of what is well-being for a child versus well-being for an adult or an elderly person, so we contribute to this debate which is now ongoing for a couple of years on multidimensional poverty indices, also to see what would be a good indicator, a good index, but does this really overpower to some extent our more old fashioned approach on measuring monetary poverty. So that is one aspect we deal with in our group. But eventually we could say this is only a tool, a necessary tool for the rest of our research group which deals with public policies and inclusive innovation. Because there the question is: what policies, public policies or innovative instruments are effective and efficient for the reduction of poverty, again in different country contexts for example. What regions do you focus on? We do a lot of research for example towards the East going towards Central Asia, East Asia, but we have also have a strong focus on sub-Saharan Africa and we have other team members who focus more on the Middle-East countries. Eventually we are very broad. We have also colleagues who are working on Latin America, we have quite a big group working in this field, but I don't want to forget actually the rich industrialized countries. So part of our research also looks at public policies in the developed countries setting. Because I also think this is something we should not forget because there are lessons to be learned both ways. What are your main research priorities? Social protection policies play a very prominent role. This is one of the core themes within public policies where our research is on and where for example we do, ranging from policy impact assessment, we go to micro-simulations, cross benefit analyses - we apply a lot of different methodologies, but within the realm of social protection policies which more and more gain a very prominent role in the discourse on poverty reduction. Who are your main partners? We do a lot of work for UNICEF, UNDP, the World Bank, the ILO, the European Commission, sometimes we do it alone, sometimes we do it together with other research institutes. It depends a little bit on the research project that we are doing. Team members also do consultancies, so really working together with governments, with ministries in certain countries. So this is more, let's say, the consulting activity which flows obviously from the research that we do. How do you influence policy makers? Well I think that it is exactly through this kind of consultancy projects that we do, but also more focused research projects. A lot of the projects for example that UNICEF or UNDP ask us to do, are always very closely liaised at the country level with the government. So what we produce, let's say, on demand, for these international organizations, is eventually also used then for policy making in the country. But the more direct route is to some extent, the work as a consultant: that you work directly with the governments, and there you draw obviously from all the research that you have done in your theme, what we have learned in the past, that is what we will use eventually, trying to convince, or to influence I must say, trying to influence governments into a certain direction or in terms of policy design, policy reform, because eventually that is also what our research theme I think is about, to produce evidence which can then be used to inform policy making. For me, that is one of the ultimate goals of what we do here because we do essentially applied research. Yes, we do theory building, it is a very important aspect of research but eventually a lot of the work we do is applied research. We also work very multi-disciplinary. It's not just economics. We draw from political science, sociology and more often also from behavioural science, so that is why we are also linked to other research themes in our institute for example. It's not that we are an island. We need to have these links and collaborate with other colleagues.