Beyond GDP

Important Dates

• Abstract submission opens:  19 May 2025
• Abstract submission deadline: 4 August 2025
• Notification of acceptance: 8 September 2025
• Full paper submission deadline: tbc
• Conference dates:  3-4 November 2025

The Regional Cooperation Council, in partnership with the Regional Studies Association, invites researchers to submit abstracts for the “Beyond GDP” Conference.

The event aims to critically examine and propose alternatives to GDP-centric economic measures by incorporating green transitions, risk and resilience frameworks, and inclusive growth principles. The conference aligns with the South East Europe 2030 Strategy, especially in the areas of inclusive economic growth and environmental sustainability.

It will connect regional and international policy stakeholders, foster dialogue between academia and policymakers, and contribute to the global movement to reframe how progress is measured, inspired by the UN’s 2024 “Pact for the Future.”

Income-centric Gross Domestic Product (GDP) has long been the dominant measure of economic progress, yet it remains an inadequate indicator for measuring wealth, economic resilience, well-being, socioeconomic equity or environmental sustainability. The limitations of GDP and income-centric measurement have led to calls for alternative or complementary metrics that capture social, ecological, and economic dimensions of equity and prosperity. Various measurement frameworks already exist, such as the OECD’s Better Life Index and Inclusive Growth Indicators, UNDP’s Human Development Index, or WEF’s Inclusive Development Index.
This Regional Cooperation Council (RCC) conference, supported by the Regional Studies Association (RSA), provides an opportunity to propose alternative measurement indicators in addition to the income-centric indicators currently widely used by the Participants of the South East Europe Cooperation Process (SEECP).  The conference will explore:

• how economic growth in the SEE region and amongst SEECP Participants can be emancipated from income centrism by focusing on natural assets, human capital and social capital and by incorporating indicators of just and green transitions, risk, and resilience to recalculate the current level of wealth and wellbeing of economies and people
• how redefined economic growth can be more inclusive, for example by taking account of informal economies
• how economic growth is considered alongside ideas such as the foundational economy and post-growth economics.

Moving beyond GDP by integrating green transitions into measures of economic growth at variable spatial scales might involve: evaluating the carbon intensity of economic activity; measuring carbon emissions against GDP at local and regional scales; measuring the proportion of energy consumption sourced from renewable sources; tracking employment shifts towards green jobs and monitoring wage equilibrium in greening labour markets without widening existing poverty, through the number of people employed in renewable energy or circular economy sectors; monitoring the equitable transition in access to affordable public or private sector provided services such as clean drinking water, clean air, and green energy sources for heating and cooling of the households and measuring their absolute or relative deprivation, assessing the impact of economic activities on ecosystems, and other means.

Risk and resilience indicators from a whole-society point of view may require measures of dependency on a single industry vis-à-vis a diversified economic base; climate and disaster resilience scores for assessing infrastructure resilience, disaster preparedness, financial risk sharing, and economic and competitiveness recovery capacity; social inclusion and equity measures for evaluating access to essential services, employment opportunities and social safety nets; or tracking investment into adaptation measures such as climate-resilient infrastructure.

The RCC ‘Beyond GDP’ Conference, supported by the RSA, aligns with South East Europe 2030 Strategy (SEE2030) priority themes, in particular inclusive economic growth and the ways in which indicators for green transitions, risk and resilience can be incorporated into measures of economic growth. Specifically, it will connect regional cooperation policy stakeholders in the South East Europe (SEE) region with global and European policy formulation; strengthen the bridge between academic research and policymaking within SEE and the broader European context; and generate actionable policy recommendations that contribute to sustainable development frameworks at regional and global levels. This is important at a time when the United Nations (UN) Summit of the Future, held in September 2024, adopted the “Pact for the Future” which includes a global commitment to move beyond GDP-centric growth and identifies 10-20 headline ‘Beyond GDP’ indicators to assess delivery of Sustainable Development Goals. The importance of this timing cannot be underestimated for SEECP Participants and globally. In the words of UN Secretary-General Antonio Guterres:

“Now is the time to correct a glaring blind spot in how we measure economic prosperity and progress. When profits come at the expense of people and our planet, we are left with an incomplete picture of the true cost of economic growth.”