The Centre for Economic Policy Research (CEPR) was founded in 1983 to enhance the quality of economic policy-making within Europe and beyond, by fostering high quality, policy-relevant economic research, and disseminating it widely to decision-makers in the public and private sectors. Drawing together the expertise of its Research Fellows and Affiliates, CEPR initiates, funds and coordinates research activities and communicates the results quickly and effectively to decision makers around the world. The Centre is an independent, non-profit organization and takes no institutional policy positions.
CEPR is based on what was (in 1983) a new model of organization, a “thinknet”. It is a distributed network of economists, who are affiliated with but not employed by CEPR, and who collaborate through the Centre on a wide range of policy-related research projects and dissemination activities. CEPR was founded at a time when European economics had relatively few “centres of excellence” with international reach but many excellent researchers, widely dispersed, with few opportunities for interaction. One of CEPR’s main achievements has been to create a virtual “centre of excellence” for European economics through an active community of dispersed individual researchers, working together across international boundaries to produce high-quality research for use by the policy community and the private sector.
