Elena Cossu

  • Economist/Evaluation Researcher
  • NatCen Social Research, Northampton Square, London, UK
  • 24/03/2022
Senior researcher, Advisor, Project lead Democracy and Governance EU Policies Inequalities International Development Public Policy and Regulation

Personal Summary

I'm a policy evaluation researcher based in London. I’m passionate about data analysis, technology, and understanding what makes different areas economically and politically converge (or not). I am confident using a vast range of quantitative and mixed methods techniques, yet I believe that economics and politics should be considered social sciences and not exact sciences. I previously worked on understanding the rise of populism in Europe with FATIGUE, and now I’m a researcher at NatCen.

Work Experience

Evaluation Researcher
Nov 2021 - Present National Centre for Social Research
  • Manage quantitative datasets and variables using syntax to undertake data management and analysis tasks.
  • Carry out quantitative data analysis such as geographical matching and synthetic control.
  • Carry out quantitative data analysis in RStudio, Stata, SPSS and Python.
  • Interpret advanced analysis, drawing conclusions and making recommendations based on analysis outputs.
  • Work with project team to devise an analytical approach appropriate to the data being investigated.
  • Deliver presentations and reports to a wide audience to a high standard.
  • Managing, cleaning, and formatting national longitudinal datasets such as the English Longitudinal Survey of Ageing (ELSA) for public and private clients in SPSS

Clients include: the UK Ministry of Defence, The National Lottery Community Fund, the UK Department for Education, the Education Endowment Foundation, the Department for Health and Social Care (DHSC), among others.

Early Stage Researcher
Aug 2018 - Nov 2021 European Commission MSCA
  • Researcher as part of the Horizon 2020 funding scheme of the European Commission Delayed Transformational Fatigue in Central and Eastern Europe’, a Marie Skłodowska-Curie Innovative Training Network (MSCA)
  • Organise, clean, manage, and analyse on a day-to-day basis different datasets with RStudio, STATA and Excel
  • Assist with the analysis and the writing of reports of data for long-term research project
  • Duty Stations for the Project:
    • European Bank for Reconstruction and Development (EBRD), Office of the Chief Economist, Transition Impact & Global Economics Team, London
    • the Slavonic School of Eastern European Studies (SSEES) at University College London (UCL)
    • Corvinus University of Budapest Institute of World Economy

Education

PhD, Economics
Aug 2018 - Present Corvinus University of Budapest
Double Degree
Dec 2014 - Apr 2017 Bocconi and SciencesPo Paris

Profiles