Melbourne – Fenicia Cossu, a researcher at the University of Cagliari and co-founder of the university spin-off Next Generation Economics Insights, has been awarded a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Global Postdoctoral Fellowship, the European Union’s flagship program for postdoctoral research funding. Her project, AUTON (Automation and Occupational Network), received a score of 98 out of 100 and will be funded for three years: the first two at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia, under the supervision of Michelle Rendall, and the third upon her return to the University of Cagliari with Alessio Moro. The fellowship is part of the MSCA-PF call, which allocated €404.3 million across Europe. Out of 1,168 applications submitted for global fellowships, only 164 were funded. Projects in economics account for just 1.6% of the total, making Cossu’s achievement particularly noteworthy. The AUTON project examines the impact of automation, robotics, and artificial intelligence on the labor market by constructing an occupational network – a system mapping interdependencies among different professions. Its aim is to understand how these transformations affect jobs, wages, and employment opportunities, as well as how technological innovation spreads across sectors and influences the broader economic system. The project’s findings could help identify, in advance, the jobs and skills most exposed to change, providing valuable tools for designing training and workforce reskilling policies. (9colonne)