Our 2026 Research Goals

Agenda 2025-2026

For the 2025–2026 publication cycle, Blue Europe will concentrate on three interrelated strategic priorities that reflect Europe’s evolving economic, technological, and geopolitical environment:

A) Economic transition, industry 4.0, and digitalisation. A core focus will be the structural transformation of European economies as they adapt to Industry 4.0 and advanced digital technologies. Research will examine the adoption of technology with particular attention to their impact on productivity. The agenda will explore how digitalisation reshapes industrial policy, supply chains and regional development in Central and Eastern Europe.

B) Energy, climate, and strategic autonomy. Energy and climate policy will remain a central pillar of the research agenda, with an expanded focus on strategic autonomy. Publications will analyse the transformation of energy systems in Europe, including renewable energy deployment, storage capacity, grid modernisation and the integration of digital technologies into energy infrastructure. Particular emphasis will be placed on how energy transitions intersect with economic competitiveness, national security, as well as on the specific challenges and pathways facing Central and Eastern European markets.

C) Cooperation beyond the European Union. The 2025-2026 agenda will place greater emphasis on Europe’s both internal and external economic and strategic relationships beyond the EU. Research will assess cooperation with neighbouring regions and global partners across trade, investment, energy and technology. Key areas of interest include country-level engagement with CEE, Asia, and other emerging markets; multilateral initiatives like the Three Seas Initiative (TSI), the Viségrad 4 (V4), the Bucharest 9 (B9), the Weimar Triangle and other transnational initiatives; as well as the implications of global order shifts for Central Eastern Europe’s economic and technological positioning. This strand will explore how cooperation beyond the EU can support resilience and long-term growth in an increasingly fragmented international system.

Central and Eastern European economies stand at a critical juncture as 2026 approaches. Historically, CEE economies have exhibited resilience in the face of global headwinds – such as geopolitical uncertainty, global-order shifts, shocks in external demand and FDIs, etc. To inform policy and investment decisions at the EU and national levels, this research proposes a comprehensive, country-level analysis of CEE economic trajectories in 2026. The study will focus on credible forecasting and disaggregated sectoral performance, with particular focus on the effectiveness of EU financial instruments, structural reforms, and monetary policy.

Disaggregation of growth reveals that private consumption, fixed investment, and external trade patterns will not contribute equally to output expansion. Evidence from UniCredit’s recent Quarterly Update highlights that resilient private consumption – propelled by “resilient consumption, stabilizing exports and renewed investment flows” – is expected to remain the principal engine of growth for the CEE region in 2026.  This distribution suggests several trends that merit targeted research attention. For example, the services sector has expanded due to domestic demand, even as manufacturing output remains constrained by weak external demand, especially from Germany, for industrial intermediate goods. Economies with stronger domestic demand fundamentals (e.g., Bulgaria, Czechia) show divergent outcomes compared to more industrially dependent ones (e.g., Hungary, Slovakia).

Moreover, understanding growth in 2026 requires exploration beyond headline GDP figures. Institutional capacity and investment flows shape the conditions under which growth happens or falters. Across CEE, absorption of European Union funds – both Recovery and Resilience Facility disbursements and structural and cohesion allocations — remains a central determinant of investment dynamics. In some CEE economies, improving regulatory quality is key to proceed to slow or stalled reforms that have reduced investor confidence, particularly among foreign direct investors who weigh legal certainty and administrative efficiency heavily in location decisions and country analysis.

Emigration of skilled labour (i.e. “brain drain) remains a salient issue in certain countries, compounding workforce shortages and increasing wage pressures in sectors critical for productivity improvements (this is especially true for Croatia and Bulgaria). The implications are twofold: on the one hand, tight labour markets support consumption and domestic demand; on the other, they raise costs for employers and complicate investment plans, especially for SMEs that lack access to global labour pools.

Our research  will undertake sector-level econometric modeling to isolate the contributions of consumption, investment, manufacturing, services, and trade to overall growth in 2026. It will also assess to what extent these drivers differ in their capacity to withstand external shocks, such as shifts in global demand or tariff regimes.

Planned goals focus on improving regulatory environments : looking ahead, there is also a need to monitor emerging financial conditions that might give rise to “boom-and-bust” dynamics. While credit growth and investment flows have not shown systemic overheating to date, localized bubbles in real estate or sector-specific capital inflows warrant careful surveillance. Early warning mechanisms and macroprudential tools will be a focus of the research agenda, as they offer insights into maintaining financial stability without stifling growth.

Across Europe, energy policy has become a central arena where economics, climate objectives, national security, and politics. Nowhere are these dynamics more pronounced than in Central and Southeast Europe, where regional politics and rapidly evolving EU policy frameworks combine to create both acute vulnerabilities and significant opportunities. This research project proposes a comprehensive analysis of the energy situation in the CEE region, examining structural trends in energy supply, technology deployment, investment patterns and governance frameworks, alongside a dedicated assessment of public attitudes toward energy policy and the clean energy transition.

The project will situate public opinion within a wider analytical framework that maps the region’s current energy mix, dependence on external suppliers, exposure to price volatility and progress toward decarbonisation and energy security goals. Particular attention will be paid to electricity generation and storage capacity, grid resilience, and the role of renewables in reshaping national energy systems.

At the European level, opinion surveys consistently show strong public concern about energy affordability, security of supply and climate change. Eurobarometer data indicate that citizens across the EU prioritise affordable energy prices and diversification of energy sources, with many viewing renewable energy and innovative technologies as essential to long-term energy security and price stability. Recent Eurobarometer data also suggests broad support for stronger EU coordination on energy policy and for renewable deployment. However, this support is often conditional, shaped by perceptions of household cost impacts and confidence in governments’ ability to manage the transition fairly and effectively.

Within the CEE region, these attitudes intersect with distinctive structural realities. The region has experienced one of the fastest rates of solar expansion in the EU since 2019, with countries such as Bulgaria rapidly increasing installed capacity. According to data from energy think tanks and Ember, solar generation growth in the region has significantly outpaced the EU average.

Beyond deployment trends, the research will examine the financial and institutional foundations of energy resilience in the region. Investment flows into generation, storage, and grid infrastructure are shaped by regulatory clarity and perceived political risk, as well as by public acceptance. While financing instruments such as green bonds are increasingly used across Europe, their uptake in CEE and Southeast European markets remains uneven.

Social acceptance and local opposition to energy infrastructure will form another key dimension of the analysis. Resistance driven by concerns over land use, property values or institutional mistrust continues to affect renewable and grid projects in specific communities. In this regard, a central component of the project will be the deployment of tailored opinion research instruments in selected CEE and Southeast European markets. Existing polling often lacks the granularity needed to capture regional differences in energy priorities, trust in government strategies, willingness to pay for clean energy and attitudes toward specific technologies such as solar and energy storage.

The research will focus on energy data, but also financing mechanisms and investor confidence also play pivotal roles in shaping both public sentiment and deployment outcomes. Innovative financing vehicles such as green bonds, public-private partnerships, and targeted incentives have emerged across Europe, but the data show uneven application in CEE and Southeast European markets. Investment confidence hinges in part on public acceptance, regulatory clarity, and perceived policy continuity—factors that can be influenced by public opinion and political responsiveness. Our research will examine how sentiment can translate into investment flows, and whether narratives that connect economic benefits to clean energy deployment enhance investor confidence.

Opposition to new energy infrastructure also persists in specific locales, often driven by “not-in-my-backyard” attitudes, property value concerns, or mistrust of institutional motives. Integrating qualitative community sentiment analysis with macro-level polling will help clarify where and how opposition manifests, and what strategies might mitigate it. It is also true that data gaps in measuring public sentiment remain a challenge. Existing polling instruments often lack granularity : tailored research that capture local energy priorities, trust levels in government strategies, willingness to pay for clean energy, and nuanced views on infrastructure deployment will be needed to generate accurate insights that are policy-relevant and contextually specific. This research seeks funding to deploy such instruments and synthesize their outputs with technological and economic data on solar and storage expansion.

Central and Eastern Europe’s manufacturing sector has been a cornerstone of regional economic integration since the 1990s. Traditional manufacturing in countries like Poland, Czechia, Hungary, Slovakia and Slovenia has historically relied on FDI and a combination of competitive labour costs and strategic location to anchor European value chains. However, the global industrial landscape is undergoing a profound transformation driven by automation, digitalisation and shifting market pressures that demand a rethinking of the manufacturing model in the CEE region. The advent of Industry 4.0 technologies (encompassing robotics, advanced data analytics, the IoT and additive manufacturing) has reshaped traditional production paradigms by enhancing productivity and enabling more flexible and sustainable operations.

There are substantive barriers to wide-scale uptake of Industry 4.0 in the region. Yet, though structural transformation requires overcoming these barriers with targeted policy frameworks and investment incentives, manufacturing competitiveness in CEE should be understood not only in terms of technology adoption. The region’s integration into global value chains has historically been as an intermediate “factory economy”, where the focus has often been on assembly and imitation rather than on design, R&D, and higher value-added activities. Does the transition to a future-ready industrial base challenge CEE capacity to enhance capabilities beyond incremental automation?

The ability of CEE countries to attract investment into high-value manufacturing (such as advanced automation, digital systems, and R&D-intensive industries) depends upon a complex interplay of macroeconomic and energy fundamentals, policy environments and perceptions among Western corporate investors, other than movement of investment in and out of their countries. On the positive side, the region’s competitive location at the heart of the European market, combined with developed infrastructure and a skilled labour base, continues to draw attention from global companies seeking nearshoring alternatives to Asia and North America. Supply chain dynamics also play a crucial role in shaping corporate investment decisions, as increasing global volatility, driven by international trade tensions, all push firms to reassess how resilient their supply chains are.  Last but not least, capital markets depth, or lack thereof, further shapes the investment landscape. External financing channels like green bonds and specialised industrial funds have emerged as mechanisms to support technological upgrades within manufacturing, yet these vehicles often remain underutilised in CEE relative to Western European markets.

This research project will present a detailed and country-level study of Industry 4.0 transition across CEE, encompassing a qualitative analysis of corporate and fund managers’ perceptions.

The research will focus again on hard data, but also on long term problematics.  Industrial transformation in CEE is not solely about hardware and capital expenditure; it is also fundamentally about human capital and sustainability integration. Skills shortages present one of the most persistent challenges to digital and automation uptake. Some countries (such as, surprisingly to some, Romania) did have a developed more robust STEM and technical training programs tend to attract higher-value activities, while those with weaker skill ecosystems struggle to move beyond labour-intensive, lower-margin production segments. Addressing these gaps requires coordinated policy action encompassing education, immigration, continuous professional development and lifelong learning initiatives that align with industrial transformation goals. Notably, and this is not highlighted enough, regional cluster evolution and export market diversification are critical for future competitiveness.

Over the past two decades, Central and Eastern Europe has undergone a rapid digital transformation characterised by high levels of adoption and several nationally significant success stories, notably in Estonia, Romania, Poland and Czechia. Yet this transformation has been uneven in depth. For instance, while digital services are widely embedded across economies and public administration, ownership and control over core digital infrastructure remain limited. Critical components of the digital economy including cloud services, advanced semiconductors, software and platform technologies are overwhelmingly foreign-controlled. This structural dependence leaves CEE economies exposed to external shocks, particularly as digital systems become increasingly embedded in critical infrastructure.

At the European level, these vulnerabilities are increasingly framed through the lens of strategic autonomy. Digital sovereignty has become a central policy objective encompassing semiconductor manufacturing, cloud and data infrastructure, AI and cybersecurity. Recent EU-level initiatives reflect a growing recognition that market-driven investment alone is unlikely to deliver the scale, coordination or long-term resilience required to compete with established US and Asian technology ecosystems. For Central and Eastern Europe, the relevance of these initiatives lies not only in their capacity to increase investment volumes, but in whether they can address deeper structural imbalances and specifically the concentration of IP ownership and value creation outside the region.

The research will analyse how regulatory frameworks shape digital innovation and market outcomes in CEE in ways that are often underestimated. EU-wide rules create a harmonised legal environment, but their economic and innovation effects are asymmetric. Firms in CEE are typically smaller, less capitalised and more reliant on external financing, often facing proportionally higher compliance costs. At the same time, regulatory clarity can function as an advantage in sectors where trust, standardisation, and interoperability are critical, including fintech, govtech, and health technologies. The central question for CEE is therefore not regulation itself, but the absence of complementary support mechanisms.

This research will therefore examine digital sovereignty in CEE as a systemic issue, linking digital infrastructure with broader questions of economic and energy resilience. In doing so, it aims to inform EU-level and national policy debates on how digital transformation in Central and Eastern Europe can evolve from rapid adoption toward secure and strategically anchored systems.

Balancing openness with resilience is therefore the core strategic challenge. CEE economies benefit from openness to trade, investment, and talent, yet excessive dependence undermines autonomy and bargaining power. The research proposed here aims to map where this balance currently lies, identify leverage points for policy intervention, and assess how EU-level coordination can better integrate CEE priorities into the digital and industrial policy agenda.