UB School of Economics researcher Francesc Amat wins fellowship to continue his research at IPERG

The UB School of Economics researcher Francesc Amat has been awarded a Junior Leader La Caixa Fellowship to continue his research career at the Institutions and Political Economy Research Group (IPERG), a research group led by Professor Carles Boix. Francesc Amat will benefit from a three-year contract aimed at retaining talent within our country through the ‘Retaining’ subprogramme of this funding scheme by La Caixa Foundation.

Francesc Amat is a research fellow at IPERG since 2017. He was awarded a PhD in Political Science from the University of Oxford (UK) in 2014 after defending his thesis on Redistribution in Parliamentary Democracies. The Role of Second-Dimensional Identity Politics. He also holds an MSc in Public Financial Policy from the London School of Economics (UK) and a MA in Social Sciences from the Center for the Advanced Study of Social Sciences (Spain).

His research and teaching interests are comparative politics and political economy. The research project that Francesc will develop at IPERG with the Junior Leader Fellowship is provisionally titled Identity Politics and Redistribution and will explore the causes and consequences of the rise of identity politics and its redistributive consequences in advanced OECD democracies.

Francesc said to us: “I am really looking forward to starting the Fellowship at IPERG-UB since it will allow me to fully develop my research projects. Among other things, I plan to study the platforms of political parties, to run experiments to disentangle voters’ economic motivations and to investigate the redistributive effects of growing inequality and immigration. The presence of excellent political scientists, economists and economic historians at IPERG and at the UB will provide a unique and fruitful environment to do that”.

The Junior Leader La Caixa fellowship programme is aimed at hiring excellent researchers who wish to continue their research career at a Spanish university. The main objectives are to foster high-quality, innovative research and to support the best scientific talents. It is divided into two different frames, which look to attract international (‘Incoming’ subprogramme: 20 fellowships) or retain talent within our country (‘Retaining’ subprogramme: 10 fellowships).

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