Established in 1980 in Milan, CSIL is an independent research and consulting company specialising in applied economic research with specific expertise in regional, industrial, research and innovation policies. CSIL’s experts are driven by the search for hard facts that tell relevant stories and by a genuine passion for understanding growth and innovation processes. Over the years, CSIL has gained a considerable experience in the evaluation of public policy, programmes and investment projects on behalf of EU and international clients, including the European Commission, the European Parliament, the European Investment Bank, the African Development Bank, the OECD, the World Bank, CERN.
CSIL carried out several comparative country and regional analyses, policy frameworks reviews and public expenditure strategies to help understand the coherence and soundness of public interventions, as well as ex-ante and ex-post evaluations to assess the economic and social effects that can be attributed to policies, programmes and projects.
CSIL boasts well-acknowledged expertise in Cohesion Policy, ESIF and their delivery mechanisms and has conducted several studies that contributed to developing EU legislation and initiatives. The team is currently leading DG REGIO’s Ex-post Evaluation on SME support financed by the ERDF in the 2014-2020 period and contributing to the ones themed on ICT investments, and European Green Deal.
CSIL has also gained significant experience in the field of Research, Innovation, Industrial Policy and Smart Specialisation and has investigated the market potential and competitiveness opportunities for specific technologies and their impact on socio-economic and territorial cohesion. Moreover, in the framework of different Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects, CSIL has been developing and testing methodologies to evaluate the socio-economic impacts of science and research infrastructures.
In general, thanks to a team of economists, political scientists, engineers, statisticians and econometricians, CSIL has a strong track record in developing and applying innovative and sound methodologies for insightful research and evaluation. Its approach is characterised by the synergic use of qualitative and quantitative methods (including cost-benefit analysis), providing hands-on training on the appraisal of public investment projects. In many previous studies and evaluation projects, CSIL proved able to engage and consult with various types of stakeholders and coordinate large networks of experts; at the moment, CSIL is supporting DG RTD with the Stakeholder Consultation on Horizon 2020, Horizon Europe & the Strategic Plan 2025-2027.
Thanks to its network of contacts, CSIL can assure full geographical coverage of European regions and most world countries to mobilise the best international partners and experts. CSIL is a corporate member of the Regional Study Association and highly values participation in networks, favouring the exchange of ideas resulting in a variety of different points of view reflected in CSIL’s studies.
CSIL is certified UNI EN ISO 9001:2015 for economic and social research specialising in public policy evaluation.
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