Foundation for Economic and Industrial Research (IOBE)

Research

Athens

11 Tsami Karatassou Str., 117 42, Athens

Greece

Dr Aggelos Tsakanikas

The Foundation for Economic & Industrial Research (IOBE) is a private, non-profit, public-benefit research organisation. It was established in 1975 with the dual purpose of promoting research on current problems and prospects of the Greek economy and its sectors and of generating reliable information, analysis and proposals for action that are non produced elsewhere and can thus be of high value to policy makers in the context of economic policy making.
In that sense, IOBE holds a unique position in Greek society: it is the only politically independent, non-partisan body dealing with major issues of the economy, and it aspires to being pro-active, that is, it seeks to identify, at an early stage, economic issues that can become crucial in the future and to propose timely solutions for these.
IOBE is enjoined by its statures to perform the following functions:
• To carry out applied research on basic structural and sectoral problems of the Greek economy as well as on various aspects of economic policy making.
• To monitor and analyse short-term economic trends, to record the business climate, and to prepare forecasts and evaluate prospects of the Greek economy.
• To provide reliable and continuously updated economic information about particular sectors of the Greek economy.
• To cooperate with foreign research institutions and international organisations on matters of common interest and to conduct multi-country research projects on economic issues and policies.
• To contribute to the public debate on economic issues.
• To undertake sponsored and commissioned research projects that fall within its aims and purposes.
In carrying out its research work, the Foundation maintains a position of academic freedom and neutrality. The judgements expressed and the proposals contained in IOBE's publications are solely the responsibility of the researcher/writer and do not necessarily reflect the views and opinions of IOBE's members, governing bodies of financial supporters.

IOBE has a solid network of different stakeholders (i.e. businesses, practitioners, policy stakeholders, academia, researchers) built through several project collaborations over the past years. Indicatively, since 1981, the research team of IOBE is subcontracted by DG ECFIN for the compilation of the monthly economic sentiment indicator for Greece. Through this task, IOBE has established an open communication channel with numerous businesses of different sizes, characteristics across all economic sectors. This network is being constantly expanded also through different activities of the Observatory of Enterpreneurship.
Besides the above, IOBE has a long lasting experience in several environmental and climate change aspects, some of which are compatible with the scope of the GrEnFIn project. Besides relevant research projects undertaken since 2009, IOBE is an associated partner of EIT Climate KIC Greece, which is composed by a consortium of various organisations across the knowledge triangle. The hub is a focal point for organisations from across business and entrepreneurship, higher education, and research and technology, supporting knowledge sharing and integration and accelerating the journey of solutions from the lab through to market.