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Innovative start-ups are central to economic dynamism and the mastering of societal challenges such as climate change – they turn ideas into marketable products without having to consider the cannibalisation of existing products. At the same time, the EU and Austria lag behind countries such as the USA in the presence and growth dynamics of such start-ups. More economic research is needed to inform economic policies aiming at counteracting this trend. The literature emphasises the lack of holistic approaches to start-up analysis. This research project has the opportunity to follow the start-ups of the Venture Capital Fund of the Institute of Science and Technology Austria in real time and thereby obtain unique data.

The changing nature of global supply chains (GSCs) requires a rethinking in the design of appropriate policy responses and in taking into account their employment and social impacts. The overall goal of RETHINK-GSC is to enhance our understanding of the impact of GSCs using new measures that can quantify the role knowledge flows, and more generally services inputs, and thus acknowledge the increasing importance of intangibles in global production. The project provides new and innovative methodologies for assessing the development of global supply chains, which generates new knowledge on ongoing and expected changes in GSCs due to shocks. The research, both theoretical and empirical, will be conducted mainly at the level of the firm – the unit that ultimately decides on the organisation of international production. Using the RETHINK-GSC innovative measures allows the projects' researchers and future scholars (i) to investigate the interaction between tangible and intangible GSCs to evaluate the changing nature of global supply chains, (ii) to provide novel ways of analysing the impact of GSCs on social, economic and environmental outcomes in European countries and (iii) to evaluate the resilience of GSCs to exogenous shocks.