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Social Platform is involved in the HORIZON 2020 Project, “EUROSHIP – Closing gaps in European Social Citizenship”, coordinated by Oslo Metropolitan University, together with researchers from Estonia, Germany, Hungary, Italy, Spain, Switzerland and the United Kingdom. The project aims to improve knowledge on the current gaps in social citizenship and the social dimension of EU citizenship, and provide recommendations on policies, indicators, and strategies at European and national levels to foster a resilient, inclusive and socially cohesive Europe.

A key strategy to achieve this is the active involvement of relevant scientific communities, government bodies, practitioners and citizens’ groups, notably through the European and National Stakeholder Committees that will support Social Platform and the other project partners. The European Stakeholder Committee is composed of four Social Platform members with expertise on the main topics of the project: AGE Platform Europe (AGE), COFACE – FAMILIES Europe, European Anti-Poverty Network (EAPN),  and the European Youth Forum,  and Social Platform partners: the European Trade Union Confederation (ETUC), the International Labour Organisation(ILO), and DG Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion (DG EMPL) of the European Commission.

The project kicked off in February 2020 and will last until March 2023. The project focuses on several issues which are at the heart of Social Platform and our members’ work. The project will:

• Assess the adequacy and suitability of existing EU social indicators and propose how the EU and national governments can further develop their social indicators, with the view to improve monitoring of the developments of European social policies and assessment tools for delivering Social Europe. This will include indicators suited to assess minimum income schemes for vulnerable population groups.
• Examine minimum income schemes across European countries and their capacity to prevent poverty and social exclusion before and after the Great Recession.
• Assess mechanisms that may foster or hamper opportunities for young adults to achieve quality jobs allowing them to qualify for adequate social protection coverage and avoid in-work poverty.
• Examine what combination of social protection policies (income maintenance, social services and regulations) and labour market conditions can help to close gaps in work and family-life balance for individuals in precarious employment.
• Analyse how long-term care policies shape the capabilities of low-income older people and people with disabilities in the context of an increasingly digitalised service economy, and offer recommendations on how the EU and national governments may overcome current gaps in realising social rights to long-term care.
• Identify how the broader changes in the digitalisation of work and public services is affecting citizens’ opportunities and creating obstacles to them participating in the economy and exercising their social rights.
• Examine the integration of the social dimension into EU economic policies to deliver inclusive growth, in particular through the implementation of the European Pillar of Social Rights.

The first policy brief of the project will be published in June  2020 and will address the gaps in social citizenship at the national and EU level, in the context of an increasingly globalised and digitalised economy.

For more information, please contact: laura.debonfils@socialplatform.org