Objective
FOUNDATIONS investigates how labor productivity emerges and evolves through the interactions between workers, firms, and places under different market structures. It develops a unified framework linking human capital, firm behavior, and agglomeration through the lens of labor market competition and market power. The project asks how workers choose employers and acquire skills, how firms select into and compete across labor markets, and how workplaces transform individual capabilities into collective productivity.
The project combines theory with an integrated empirical strategy that merges large-scale surveys, vignette experiments, field collaborations, and population-wide administrative data. These instruments capture the behavioral, cognitive, and organizational foundations of productivity formation, providing multidimensional evidence on how workers and firms learn, adapt, and organize under competition. Three interlocking objectives—each corresponding to a foundational mechanism of productivity formation—structure the analysis. The first examines how market power shapes workers’ access to high-opportunity firms and their subsequent development. The second studies how firms choose and adapt to different competitive environments, linking these strategies to productivity growth and regional inequality. The third opens the black box of the workplace to reveal how individual skills are converted into collective output—and how these processes depend on competitive pressure.
These components reveal how workers’ access to opportunity, firms’ strategic positioning, and the organization of work within firms—each shaped by the structure of competition—jointly generate productivity and explain why growth and opportunity remain unevenly distributed. By reconnecting classic ideas on human capital, firm heterogeneity, and agglomeration within a single framework, the project lays new theoretical and empirical foundations for understanding the origins of labor productivity.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
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CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2026-STG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
N-5045 Bergen
Norway
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.