The 13th International Conference - ESPERA 2026
Mapping out a route towards a paradigm shift focused on competitiveness and well-being against the backdrop of a challenging economic and social context at the global, European, and national levels
16th-17th October, 2026
First Call for papers – ESPERA 2026
The aim of the international conference ”Economic Scientific Research - Theoretical, Empirical and Practical Approaches”- ESPERA, initiated in 2013 by the National Institute for Economic Research ”Costin C. Kirițescu” (NIER), is to present and evaluate the economic scientific research portfolio, to argue and substantiate the Romanian development strategies - including European and global best practices. The 2026 edition of the Conference will be held on 15th - 16th October, under the title: ”Mapping out a route towards a paradigm shift focused on competitiveness and well-being against the backdrop of a challenging economic and social context at the global, European, and national levels”.
The event program addresses a wide diversity of themes, bringing together researchers from all NIER institutes and centres, members of the Romanian Academy and also guests, from Romanian universities and from other countries, including master, PhD and post PhD students.
Under the circumstances of multiple economic challenges facing the whole world caused by political instability, weaker global and national macroeconomic growth prospects, oil shock adversities and persistence of energy-driven spikes in inflation, trade flows unpredictability vs supply chains disruptions, financial markets volatility, geopolitical tensions heightening due mainly to Middle East war escalating, new policy levers and tools to surmount them are required, focused on competitiveness boost and productivity gains, people’s daily life and well-being improvement through technological advances accelerating, investments enhancing, including in human capital, energy strategies resetting, expanding access to domestic capital markets and offshore financing.
To this end, redefining the analytical framework of metrics and indicators that capture increasingly complex and interconnected challenges, experienced at global and national levels is proving to be of crucial importance, with the aim of identifying the most appropriate policy macroprudential tools and actions, based on an in-depth understanding of key sectoral trends, the factors driving rapid changes of the actual complicated internal and external context, as well as foreseeable developments in the short and medium term.
Researchers are encouraged to present papers of scientific research regarding, as much as possible, the topics presented above.
Even if many of the papers deal with these aspects from the perspective of the impact and relevance of the analyzed aspects from the point of view of the Romanian economy and society, through the significant number of foreign authors participating in each of its previous editions, the ESPERA International Conference has proven its worth to act as a conducive forum for debating, sharing of knowledge and good practices with representatives of the academic environment, researchers and teaching staff from other countries, both from the European Union and non-EU countries.
The International conference proceedings is dedicated mainly for professionals, researchers, decision makers, but also for all interested parties - academia, practitioners, PhD and post PhD students and a broader public audience - providing valuable knowledge about the world economy latest developments and its foreseeable evolvement, understanding transformational drivers of national economies and developing strategies, policies and tools adequate to the related reforms.
The Conference is intended as a thought-provoking exercise for researchers and it is organized in such a way as to provide a wide-ranging platform for debates, covering the broadest approaches, enabling an interactive exchange of ideas and the most recent scientific results and findings, including those emerged in economic science arising from both fundamental and empirical researches and promoting evidence-based policy making new vision under crisis circumstances.
The contributions and views that will be expressed, on a meritorious and wide-ranging level, will be disseminated, as in previous years, in a volume - Proceedings of the International Conference ESPERA 2026, that will be submitted to EBSCO and also for evaluation and inclusion in Conference Proceedings Citation Index by Clarivate, Web of Science and SCOPUS.
The Conference includes an additional section dedicated to master, PhD and post PhD students, thus providing a conducive framework for scientific debate and their training.
The Conference will be held in a hybrid format (on site and online). The correspondence with the authors will take place using the email address: espera@ince.ro.
Academia Românã
Institutul National de Cercetari Economice 'Costin C. Kiritescu'
