RESHORE · Participatory Pathways for Reshoring European Manufacturing

RESHORE is an action research project which will investigate the potential and limits for manufacturing in Europe as part of a social economy fit for the future. In spite of decades of offshoring and a global race-to-the-bottom, manufacturing remains a significant part of the European economy, employing around 30 million people. Given increasing evidence of the vulnerabilities and unsustainabilities resulting from over-reliance on global supply chains, especially in a post-Covid context, RESHORE will enhance our understanding of how emerging and established European manufacturers operate and thrive, influencing discourse on sustainable economic transformation in the EU. Theoretically and methodologically grounded in economic geography, the project will take a comparative approach to learn from existing initiatives in reshoring manufacturing in Germany, Italy and the Czech Republic. The objectives of RESHORE are: 1. To advance a ‘diverse economies’ analytical framework for understanding the equitable relocalisation of European manufacturing; 2. To outline participatory pathways for local manufacturing in three EU Member States, drawing from interactive visioning workshops; 3. To identify the geographical influences for equitable reshoring transitions through empirical case studies. To achieve these objectives, and influence public debate on issues relating to reshoring, the project will combine conventional qualitative methods (ethnography, semi-structured interviews) with transdisciplinary, action-research approaches. A structured and comprehensive plan for training in transdisciplinary methods will enable the fellow to reach professional maturity and secure a group leader or permanent faculty position at a world-leading European research institution. This project will be hosted at LMU, Munich, and includes a secondment at the European Research Institute on Cooperative and Social Enterprise (EURICSE), Italy.