Introducing SWITCH!
23.09.13
SWITCH stands for Sustainability, Welfare, Innovation and Competition in Health. The project is led by the brilliant Prof. Fabio Pammolli of the Institute of Advanced Studies, Lucca, IMT and CERM. Fabio has put together an extremely impressive team of economists and related academics, which EFPIA has decided to support with co-funding for the next three years.
We took the decision to invest in this work because we want to support the best possible debate on the future of health in Europe. Policy decisions in the next few years will have a profound effect on not only the provision of healthcare services and treatment, but also on what society can expect generally from the welfare state in future. We believe strongly that such a policy debate needs to be built on a foundation of high-quality data, analysis and open discussion.
Broad themes to be covered by the research programme include:
- The New Welfare: growth sustainability & redistribution (including work on the optimal future funding structures of pensions and healthcare)
- Innovation, capabilities and competitive advantage of nations and regions
- Market dynamics and regulation in international pharmaceutical industry
- Firms, Schumpeterian competition and growth
More detail on the project can be found at the following website which has been launched this week.
The work of Fabio and the team is particularly novel (and I believe useful) because it sits on the boundaries of macro, industrial and health economics. There are few teams around the world who can credibly do this – but innovative research across disciplines like this is essential if progress is going to be made on these important topics.
Watch this space…
