GlobalEuroNet - “Globalizing Europe Economic History Network” is a Research Programme funded by the European Science Foundation. ESF Scientific Programmes are networking activities bringing together key research groups at European level in order to share knowledge and expertise, develop new techniques and training young scientists. GlobalEuroNet has been approved by the ESF Standing Committee for the Social Sciences (SCSS) and will run until 2010.

Economic history has emerged in many European countries as a dynamic discipline based on rigorous analytical categories and empirical methods. The demand for education and training in theoretically-driven analysis of the past has been relentlessly growing since the 1980s, and new centers promoting excellence in teaching and research have been established. Economic historians provide now both undergraduate and post-graduate students in economics, business, social and political sciences all over Europe with a long-run perspective of the sources of economic growth, the expansion of international trade, the international movements of capital and labour, or the role of institutions in enhancing (or hindering) economic development.

Such secular view is critical in order properly to understand the economic success or failure of countries, their performances in terms of macroeconomic stability, and their reaction to the deep forces of economic integration and internationalization—what is usually referred to as globalization. Thanks to its natural interdisciplinary vocation, economic history has become a fundamental component of the cultural background of any economist, social and political scientist interested in empirical analysis. Having reached a critical mass, European economic historians feel now increasingly compelled to overcome their traditional national fragmentation and address old and new issues in an Europe-wide, comparative perspective.

The Programme is based on the systematic cooperation of research teams from 14 European countries (Austria, Belgium, Estonia, Finland, Germany, Hungary, Ireland, Norway, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland, The Netherlands, Portugal, Turkey) and is coordinated by the Department of Economic History and Institutions, University Carlos III Madrid, through the Instituto Laureano Figuerola de Historia Económica, its research arm.