The network combines two central lines of development in economic policy, at the EU level and at the level of the member states. Comprehensive reforms necessary to meet the Lisbon Target are currently in progress. These aim to improve the competitiveness of Europe's businesses and workforce well into the future. Against this background, it has been argued that national and European "champions" can provide the driving force behind competitiveness in many sectors of the economy. Proponents of this point of view further argue that the vital contribution made by such firms must be acknowledged when judging them on the basis of competition policy.

At the same time, competition policy in Europe is undergoing a process of profound change. While merger control has been reformed with the introduction of the EC Regulation 139/2004, the effects-based approach has taken on a great deal of relevance in the discussions of Article 82 of the EC Treaty, which prohibits abuse of a dominant position. This approach questions the established judicial point of view and proposes to emphasize the market outcome rather than the aim of guaranteeing free market processes. The purpose of competition policy is to ensure sustained and effective competition. Firms' innovative behaviour is an important element in this context, in that it contributes to dynamic efficiency, which has gained in importance under the effects-based approach.

One core aspect of the network's mission is to deepen understanding of the economic and legal foundations of recent developments in European competition policy, at a time when the policy itself is increasingly being integrated into national laws and regulations. Of central concern is the need to reconcile the decision-making process, which must be rule-based and therefore able to offer legal certainty, with robust analyses making use of the latest economic insights and econometric models. A second central task is to use the findings of innovation research to determine what effect competition policy has on firms' innovative behaviour and on the resulting innovations themselves.

Necessary for a comprehensive study of this area are an analysis of the current situation by means of market studies, an investigation into the incentive effects of the present legal provisions to regulate mergers and empirical tests to determine what knock-on effects result for firms' innovative behaviour, taking into consideration both up- and downstream industries. No evaluation of current legal practice or assessment of possible changes would be possible without legal expertise. For the quantitative analyses, econometric methods and simulation studies are needed to empirically test theory-driven concepts and the concrete political recommendations they suggest.

The members of the network aim to strengthen and broaden their competencies and build up their international research networks. By linking up and sharing infrastructure, a process which includes maintaining and adding to data resources, we hope to strengthen research into competition and innovation in Europe and to contribute to the interdisciplinary dialogue between the fields of economics and law. The network will offer improved opportunities for young researchers to gain experience and further their careers.

The personal structure of the network will assure that the research results are further shared within the legal and economic research communities by means of publication and that they are communicated to those responsible for competition policy in practice. Therefore the creation of the network will bring added value for the institutes involved, for legal and economic research both nationally and internationally, and for practitioners of competition policy.