Research Unit

One of the main goals of the Haddad Entrepreneurship Institute at the Nova School of Business and Economics is to promote research in the area of Entrepreneurship and Innovation. In that respect, we have joined forces with 7 other top European Business schools to create the European Scaleup Institute, to produce and share data, bringing together academics and practitioners, and fostering research to understand what limits the growth of startups. The first academic conference of the European Scaleup Institute (ESI) took place at the Haddad Entrepreneurship Institute in 2023 bringing together academics from around Europe. The Haddad Institute has also organized two academic conferences (in 2022 and 2023), where renowned academics in the area of entrepreneurship and innovation came to discuss their latest research.

The Finance KC made important contributions concerning the crucial role of human capital, at the individual and organisational levels, in shaping various aspects of firm behaviour, performance, and resilience, and the broader economic landscape. Queiró (RESTUD) highlighted how the educational background and skills of entrepreneurs influence firm dynamics, emphasizing the importance of human capital in driving growth and technological adoption within firms. Silva et al. (J Finance) demonstrated the vulnerability of firms to talent loss during periods of financial distress, underscoring the significance of skilled labour as a key asset for firm survival and resilience. Custódio et al. (ManSc) explored how CEOs with diverse managerial skills contribute to innovation within firms, highlighting the role of human capital in fostering innovative capabilities. Prado et al. (JFinEc) examined the impact of managerial incentives on firm behaviour and performance, illustrating how organisational dynamics, influenced by human capital considerations, shape outcomes such as fund performance and risk management. Silva et al. (ManSc) delved into the broader macroeconomic context, investigating how institutional quality affects innovation. This underscores the importance of inclusive institutions in fostering an environment conducive to innovation and economic growth, thus highlighting the broader societal implications of human capital and institutional frameworks. Taken together, these studies emphasize the need for policies and strategies that promote education, skill development, and institutional quality to enhance firm competitiveness and foster sustainable economic growth.

The ERA Chair in Social Innovation, funded by the European Union, started its work in September 2021 when Anne-Laure Fayard joined Nova SBE as Professor of Social Innovation and ERA Chair holder. The ERA Chair in Social Innovation has 3 main pillars: research, education and community engagement.

In terms of research, it aims to strengthen the Social Innovation area in Europe and foster interdisciplinary research. The research agenda of the ERA Chair in social innovation focuses on an important question, both for academics and practitioners, that is how individuals and organizations can organize and collaborate across multiple sectors to address complex social and environmental issues. In her research, Anne-Laure Fayard explores different forms of collaboration for social innovation, defined as not only solutions developed (new ideas, services and models) to address issues such as poverty, social exclusion and environmental justice but also as a process that encourages new behaviours and systemic change. She has studied open social innovation, cross-sector collaboration and as well as co-creation. Since she joined Nova SBE, Anne-Laure Fayard’s research has been published in several leading academic and practitioner outlets such as Organization Science, Harvard Business Review and Stanford Social Innovation Review. Her research and social innovation projects are frequently highlighted in major newspapers such as the New York Times, Financial Times and The Economist. In March 2022, she was selected as one of the top 100 women in social entrepreneurship by the EUCLID network. She is also, since Fall 2023, writing a bi-monthly op-ed in the Observador. Her work is also disseminated through public debates, workshops and keynote speeches. For instance, she talked about Debunking myths about the future of work during the ESSEC Science and Society Day, a conference open to the public in April 2023.  In October 2023, Fayard was invited by the board of the European Centers of Competence in Social Innovation to give a keynote on Hackathons and Design Jams: Accelerating Innovation?”  during the European Week of the Regions and Cities (EWRC), in Brussels on October 10, 2023.

Fayard has created a team of qualitative researchers (assistant professors and PhD students) to contribute meaningfully to the current academic conversations on social innovation and sustainability.  Since the Fall of 2021, the ERA Chair invited 15 academics from top institutions in Europe and the US to give research seminars. With Paolo Leone, an assistant professor, and member of the Chair, she co-funded along with Joanna Mair (Hertie School of Public Policy), and Thomas Gegenhuber (JKU Linz and Leuphana University Lüneburg) the Research Group for Open Social Innovation, which is composed of 20+ researchers studying social innovation, open innovation and cross-sector collaboration.

In terms of education, the ERA Chair team leverages design thinking, experiential learning and project-based learning to provide NOVA SBE students with learning opportunities to explore further their aspirations for social change and impact. Since the launch of the ERA Chair, 6 new courses (Master’s and PhDs) were created at Nova SBE. Since January 2022, Fayard has been the Academic Director for the master’s in Impact Entrepreneurship and Innovation, a master’s launched in Fall 2022 and which received close to 140 students in Fall 2023. Moreover, the ERA Chair sponsors a highly recognized Qualitative Methods workshop in the summer which attracts PhD students and post-doc fellows from top schools in Europe and the US (e.g. Cambridge, Oxford, ESSEC, VU Amsterdam, NYU, Harvard, UCLA). Community engagement is another essential pillar of the ERA Chair, which collaborates with multiple stakeholders, including local communities and social innovators, to support their efforts in tackling grand challenges. To support community engagement, Fayard founded the DESIS (Design for Social Innovation and Sustainability) Lab @ NOVA SBE, developing with her team different initiatives such as design jams (ideation events around specific teams like sustainable cities, sustainable fashion), the prototyping fund (a program that supports early-stage student projects, in collaboration with the Haddad Entrepreneurial Institute with EU funding) and the social innovator in residence (every semester the Chair invites a social innovator for one week to facilitate workshops, gives public talk and meet with students, faculty and staff). The DESIS Lab runs a podcast, Design Thinking Roundtable, in partnership with NYU Design Lab. From fall 2021 to January 2024, it produced 20 episodes. It has nearly 800 followers and more than 7800 plays across platforms.

Pina e Cunha coordinated the project European Forum on Paradox and Pluralism (EUFFORP) between 2019 and 2022, which aimed at exploring the importance of paradox and pluralism in ensuring democracy's vitality, especially during challenging times like the COVID-19 pandemic and conflicts in Europe. The project, a collaboration among prestigious institutions such as City University of London, Université de Genève, LUISS Guido Carli, and Erasmus University of Rotterdam, succeeded in establishing a forum for creating, transferring, and disseminating knowledge about paradox and plurality to organisations and society at large. The project's achievements include over 20 scientific publications that addressed the challenges and benefits of managing paradoxical tensions within organisations, contributing significantly to the academic discourse on this topic through more than 20 articles in top journals and book chapters. To foster social and organisational impact, the forum engaged a broad audience, including practitioners, policymakers, and the business community, through activities like the Paradox and Plurality Annual Meeting and Impact Labs where master’s students tackled real business issues. Additionally, the project produced 19 business cases, a series of educational videos, and a children's book titled Questions in the Air, all aimed at promoting understanding and application of paradox and pluralism in various contexts. This book, available in multiple languages, is designed to foster paradoxical thinking in children creatively and educationally, highlighting the project's wide-reaching implications for teaching and understanding complex concepts in society.

The NOVAFRICA KC significantly advanced the area of development economics, in close collaboration with local and international institutions. This research had a clear influence on policymaking, with a likely impact on millions of lives, in countries such as Mozambique, Guinea-Bissau, Angola, and The Gambia, with whose institutions NOVAFRICA works in close collaboration from project inception. For example, the work on the resource curse in Mozambique evaluated an information campaign about natural resource management that was shown to decrease the prevalence of conflict in the first year of the insurgency in Cabo Delgado. It not only improved the lives of people in the region through informing local partners (the Government of Mozambique as well as Islamic organisations), but it also has the potential to be replicated in many other regions facing similar problems. A second example is the work on the introduction of mobile money, which revolutionizes financial inclusion on the African continent and helps migration to the cities, urbanization, and structural change. It demonstrated its economic and social benefits and made the Bank of Mozambique more flexible in its regulation of mobile money. These projects also gave rise to top academic publications, about the resource curse in Mozambique (AER), demobilization of combatants following radio campaigns (AER), mobile money in Mozambique (RESTAT), ethnic salience and natural resources (EJ), cash transfers and household behaviour (EJ), gender, financial literacy, and savings through mobile money in Mozambique (ManSc), computer-assisted learning in Angola (JDE), incentives of community health workers in Guinea-Bissau (JDE), and measurement of corruption in Mozambique (JPubEc). The research produced by NOVAFRICA is widely cited in international media, such as The Economist, Washington Post, El País, and Euronews, as well as the Portuguese, Mozambican, and Gambian national media. It has been presented at the Institute of Fiscal Studies and the World Bank in its Development Impact Evaluation (DIME) programme and Infrastructure Master Class.

The Economics of Education Knowledge Center made significant contributions to the public discussion on evidence-based education policies. It has partnerships with institutions such as University College London, the University of Lisbon, and the Portuguese High Commission for Migration. The KC was involved in the building of databases for the General Directorate on Education and Science Statistics and has access to administrative data on all public and private school students from 1st to 12th grades. This database has been the source for many research projects, along with field experiments in the schools of Portugal and Cape Verde. It has also produced evidence on relevant topics such as the impact of teachers on students’ learning, the impact of different assessment methods on academic achievement, learning recovery after the pandemic, teacher shortages, early detection of learning difficulties, vocational education, student migration, education inequalities and the role of information on students’ aspirations and choices. Many of these studies have been published in relevant academic journals, garnered considerable media attention and produced a significant societal impact, such as the Forecast of Teacher Demand and Supply between 2021 and 2030, commissioned by the government, which is the first detailed study on teacher shortages in Portugal, predicting that around 34000 teachers must be recruited over 10 years due almost half of teachers retiring. From Jan 2021 to Dec 2023, the KC’s studies have been mentioned at least 58 times in the media. Its researchers have accepted 80 invitations to share their knowledge as experts on the Economics of Education in newspaper articles, radio and television interviews and debates on all major Portuguese media outlets. Also, the KC has been producing the Portuguese school rankings in partnership with Jornal Observador for the last 8 years.

A Nova Finance KC flagship initiative is the Finance for All programme, an innovative effort aimed at promoting financial literacy in Portugal. Recognizing the importance of empowering individuals and families with the knowledge and skills needed to make informed financial decisions, we have offered free training sessions and telephone support, thereby contributing to the development of our country and supporting the implementation of the 2030 Agenda on Sustainable Development Goals. Through tailored educational interventions, including modules on financial management, strategy, marketing, and leadership, we sought to equip business managers of SMEs with the tools and insights needed to thrive in today's dynamic business landscape.

Initially piloted in the 2022/2023 academic year, the program surpassed expectations, prompting us to expand our offerings to meet the overwhelming demand. Transitioning to online sessions allowed us to reach a wider audience, with 240 participants trained in face-to-face sessions at Nova Campus and 500 participants in online sessions during the pilot year. Building upon the success of the pilot, the 2023/2024 edition of the program has seen exponential growth, with 23 classes opened to accommodate the increased demand. Our goal is to train over 2500 individuals in 2024, with 477 receiving face-to-face instruction and 2145 engaging in online learning. In addition to providing training, the current edition of the program includes a Research Project aimed at measuring the impact assessment of our training interventions. Through surveys and analysis of administrative data, we seek to evaluate the program's influence on financial knowledge, credit decisions, savings/investment behaviour, consumption patterns, and employment outcomes. The "Finance for All" program continues to evolve, driven by our unwavering commitment to fostering financial literacy and empowering individuals and families across Portugal to navigate today's dynamic business landscape with confidence and competence.

The Health Economics and Management KC made significant contributions regarding public and private healthcare ecosystems. Its work is regularly published in scientific journals, and its innovative models and findings are widely disseminated through books, social media, participation in public debates, and keynote speeches. This KC also promoted the creation of a postgraduate course in Management of Health Care Units (now 5th edition). Pedro Pita Barros was a member of the EC Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health, the Horizon 2020 Cancer Mission, the National Ethics Council for Life Sciences, and the Portuguese National Health Council. Several members of the KC co-authored replies to public consultations on public policies for the health sector, nationally and at the EU level.

The Patient Innovation Bootcamp is an acceleration program, supported by EIT Health, the health community of the European Institute of Innovation and Technology, since 2020, to support patients and informal caregivers to implement and scale up their own developed innovative solutions, to help them cope with their health conditions. The ultimate goal of this bootcamp is to help the participating teams scale up their solutions from ideas to prototypes, and ultimately prepare them for market launch. The program has a blended format, combining in-person training with online sessions. This project counts on renowned European partners such as Universidade Nova de Lisboa (Nova SBE and NMS), Copenhagen Business School, IESE, Biocat, and the Patient Innovation Association. Since 2020, 120 citizens and 44 European startups founded by patients or informal caregivers have been supported throughout this program.

Interdisciplinary research at the Environmental Economics Knowledge Center aims to contribute to a better understanding and awareness of the role played by initiatives led by local authorities (e.g. marketing campaigns by the Municipality of Nazaré) with the support of different stakeholders such as private firms in making visible the overlooked benefit that unique pristine natural ecosystems, e.g. Nazaré’s BigWave, can bring to local communities, by estimating the corresponding economic impact due to decrease in seasonality. Hence, the results obtained highlight the relevance of ensuring the good condition of natural marine and coastal ecosystems to the livelihood of local communities by pursuing sustainable management practices and contribute to attitudes that facilitate cooperation between different stakeholders at a regional level. For instance, given the short distances between the different regions in Portugal with diverse natural environments (coast/inland), cooperation at the regional level can be key by exploring synergies through complementary initiatives that benefit larger areas, avoiding “a race to the bottom”. Therefore, the regulatory framework should also be designed to promote healthy cooperation at the regional level for win-win solutions. This learning-by-doing process contributes to changes in decision-making processes involving the promotion of different cultural and social values by engaging local populations in the design and implementation of more sustainable public policy decisions.

Other contributions for Portugal relate to the estimation of the positive role played by the forest cover on water treatment cost savings depending on whether the firms extract from the surface or aquifers, such as in the Algarve. In this last case, exposed to more frequent and severe droughts, land conversion from forest to other uses such as development due to tourist sector pressures or water-intensive crop production imposes higher social costs in the form of higher drinking water costs, and increasing scarcity. Under the pressure of recent severe droughts, restrictions are now being imposed with higher costs to consumers.

Another recent study assessed the causal link between the short-term variation in the inhaled silicon dust concentration produced by a cement plant in the city of Bryanskii, Russia, between 2014 and 2017, and hospital admissions for respiratory and cardiovascular-related reasons. Using granular data at the individual level, a lower bound to health cost savings from reducing the observed levels is estimated.

The Economics for Policy KC annually produces the Portugal, Social Balance report, led by Susana Peralta. It provides a comprehensive socioeconomic analysis of Portuguese families, focusing on poverty, inequality, and social exclusion, and aims to inform public debates and policymaking by addressing employment, education, health, and housing conditions, along with the efficacy of public policies. It also includes smaller thematic reports, e.g., a municipal portrait of energy poverty, a discussion on the unequal impacts of inflation along the income distribution, and the intergenerational transmission of poverty. This project gathered a lot of press coverage and attracted attention from policymakers in parliament and government. Peralta has advised the Tax Authority on tax benefits and participated in official task forces nominated by the Portuguese government to discuss policy reforms, namely the Budgetary Law Framework, Post-Pandemic Learning Recoveries, and Social Security Sustainability.

Nova SBE made a significant contribution to address the COVID-19 pandemic. Pita Barros’s co-authored studies on uncovered determinants of healthcare access, vaccination hesitancy and the acceptance of lockdown policies, in Portugal and the EU. As rapporteur of the Expert Panel on Effective Ways of Investing in Health, he gave rise to research calls and the definition of policies by the EC. The European Covid Survey co-founded by Pita Barros informed German government policies on COVID-19. Armand et al. (Nature Medicine) described COVID-19 vaccine acceptance and hesitancy in Low- and Middle-Income Countries. Santos, Xufre and Zejnilovic supported the mobile operator NOS to develop indicators of individual movements, helping the municipalities of Cascais and Lisbon combat the spread of COVID-19. A group led by Consiglio explored how confirmation bias affected decisions to follow the recommendations of the National Health Service, e.g. search for trustworthy information and willingness to get vaccinated, and a previously lab-tested intervention to improve the compliance rate. The bias does exist, but the intervention proved ineffective in practice. The project’s outcomes resulted in two reports, articles in the New England Journal of Medicine and BMJ Global Health, were presented to the EC and the World Bank, and covered in the Portuguese media. Catela Nunes et al. showed that temporary lockdowns affected public and private schools differently and increased inequality in education, as many students did not have access to computers and the Internet. This study was funded and published by the La Caixa Social Observatory. The Technostress project led by Castanheira examined the adverse effects of remote work, particularly techno-invasion and techno-overload, from 2020 to 2022. It identified how the perceived usefulness of technology can exacerbate addiction and lead to burnout and lower productivity. A group supervised by Han studied the impact of the pandemic on tourism and hospitality, using Airbnb booking data, providing precise measurements of its effect on the hospitality market. The media covered this research more than 40 times.