Founded in 1993, ICAPE is a consortium of over 30 groups in economics working cooperatively to maintain diversity and innovation in methods, approaches, policy analyses, and higher education in the profession. This network of groups seeks to foster intellectual pluralism and a sense of collective purpose and strength among these heterodox organizations.

ICAPE’s Statement of Purpose:

ICAPE is dedicated to the idea that pluralism and intellectual progress are complements. This is not to say “anything goes,” but that each tradition of thought (Austrian, feminist, old and new institutionalist, Marxian, neoclassical, Post Keynesian, Sraffian, etc.) adds something unique and valuable to economic scholarship.

Achieving productive discussion and debate across schools of economic thought is not a simple matter. There are many institutional and practical obstacles to pluralism. It is precisely by helping to remove those obstacles that ICAPE hopes to render a service to the community of economists throughout the world. In 1993, our founders outlined four goals for ICAPE:

• to publicize and help develop a multiplicity of approaches to the scientific analysis of economic activity;
• to promote a new spirit of pluralism in economics, involving critical conversation and tolerant communication among different approaches, within and across the barriers between the disciplines;
• to campaign for greater pluralism in the range of contributions to economics journals and in the training and hiring of economists; and,
• to coordinate the activities of economists and economic associations who share one or more of the above aims.

Though the particular means used may vary over time, ICAPE’s activities are always inspired by these aims.