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Fedea was set up to exert a positive influence on society, by emphasising the economic and social dimension of problems affecting our future. The way this has been achieved has been to set prestigious and committed researchers to work on issues of importance to the country and apply their contributions to daily reality.

20 year on, FEDEA remains a unique initiative in Spain, due to its independent nature, its focus on the Spanish economy and also its role as a bridge between the world of academia and social and economic reality.

Led by researchers of acknowledged repute, Fedea Chairs aim to identify the most important research groups in Spain in a given field and bring them together in a network promoted by the Chair to make significant contributions to the field in question. In addition, the Chairs promote the transmission of knowledge acquired to a range of interested audiences.

The Chairs, funded by contributions made by the sponsors who serve on the Board of Fedea, are created for a five-year period, with a mid-term review during the third year.

Fedea Chairs are research programmes designed to facilitate significant contributions over a medium-term time frame of 5 years. Each chair undertakes the following activities:

• Research projects in each line of research forming part of the programme, according to the initial programme design. Where necessary, Chairs draw up data bases to validate the theoretical results obtained.
• Creation or participation in a research network to share efforts and thus enhance knowledge in specific fields. The Chairs also support Ph.D theses, as a form of investment in Foundation’s own human capital.
• Two types of international publications are produced to disseminate the contributions made: one, a more academic journal, is aimed at other researchers, thus facilitating comparison of results, while the other is intended for dissemination of results to a non-specialist audience.
• International meetings are organised during the life-span of the Chairs to outline research results. Part of the meetings is set aside to pass on the results to a broader audience.

In its session of 23 April 2007, the Fedea Board approved the setting up of Research Chairs in the Foundation. Since then, in response to a proposal from Fedea, the different sponsors have suggested fields which they consider should be given Chair status and the appropriate agreements have been signed for their formal creation.

Fedea currently has the following Chairs:

Like society at large, the Sponsor of each Research Chair benefits from the positive influence accompanying the applied economic research carried out by the Chair. In addition, there are specific returns for the entities that fund a research programme:

• The name of the sponsoring entity appears in the title of the Chair and in every activity undertaken: on the Chair’s web page in Fedea, in publications, research network activities, and in the international meeting held annually.
• The funding body participates in the design and direction of the research programme to be carried out by the Chair. The first action by the research programme is to convene a meeting with funders to outline the programme content and receive guidance. This ensures the research is conducted in areas of most interest to the sponsor.
• As often as is considered appropriate, the director of the research programme and the other researchers meet with representatives of the sponsoring body to outline the results obtained, discuss their implications and jointly review possible practical uses for the sponsor of the knowledge acquired.

• The sponsor is associated with values viewed by society as being highly positive, which the entity may derive benefit from in the longer term: dedication to quality research, concern for major contemporary issues, unselfish effort to seek to resolve such issues, etc.