Cluster 2 Partnerships

Projects funded under this destination should contribute to the following expected impacts in the Horizon Europe Strategic Plan 2025-2027^[1]:

• Strengthening social and economic resilience and sustainability
• Boosting inclusive growth and reducing vulnerabilities effectively

The expected impacts reflect the two-pronged nature of the destination. On the one hand, research funded by this destination will improve the understanding of how the macro drivers of change (technological change, climate change, new global trade patterns, along with migration, human mobility, and other demographic changes) impact society and inform policy makers on how to mitigate negative consequences and harness newly created opportunities. The results obtained should improve the understanding of the interplay between different drivers of change and their social, ethical, political, and economic implications. The improved understanding of these challenges and their economic, social, and distributional impacts will fill in the research gaps while also inform the design and assessment of policies addressing existing and emerging challenges, including in the areas of education, well-being and mental health.

On the other hand, research and innovation investment should be geared towards deepening the understanding of how ongoing changes impact society, with a specific emphasis on the key objectives of boosting inclusive and sustainable growth and effectively reducing vulnerabilities, poverty and inequalities. This knowledge should provide valuable insights to policymakers to design and assess policies that effectively address vulnerabilities while capitalizing on emerging opportunities.

Overall, the destination’s activities will help promote the EU’s inclusive growth, resilience, and fair transition towards climate neutrality, by providing solid analytical evidence to implementing actions related to:

• The European Pillar of Social Rights, and its Action Plan with its three ambitious targets (78% employment rate, 60% of population with yearly training, and reduction of the number of people at risk of poverty and social exclusion by at least 15 million by 2030)
• the European Education Area and its EU-level 2030 targets
• The Union of Skills (including envisaged initiatives on skills portability and the European Strategy for Vocational Education and Training, the Pact for Skills and the Skills Agenda)
• the first-ever EU Anti-Poverty Strategy and the European Affordable Housing Plan
• The Union of Equality policies and strategies, including:
  • the Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021-2030^[2] (in line with the United Nations Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities^[3]); the European Accessibility Act (Directive 2019/882), and the European Disability Card
  • The Gender Equality Strategy 2020 – 2025 and the Directive combating violence against women and domestic violence
  • EU Anti-racism Action Plan 2020-2025
  • The Strategic EU Framework for Roma Equality, Inclusion and Participation 2020-2030
  • The LGBTIQ Equality Strategy 2020-2025
• The Communication on Demographic change in Europe: a toolbox for action
• The EU’s just transition policy framework, in line with the 2040 Climate Target Plan, including the Just Transition Mechanism, the Social Climate Fund, and the Council Recommendation on ensuring a fair transition towards climate neutrality
• The new Pact for European Social Dialogue and the Council Recommendation on strengthening social dialogue in the EU.
• The European Child Guarantee
• The Council Recommendation on adequate minimum income
• The Commission Communication on a comprehensive approach to mental health
• The new Pact on Asylum and Migration and its accompanying actions, initiatives and legislation.

A new European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience^[4], focused on the social sciences and humanities (SSH), will be launched to make use of their potential to foster resilience, fairness and inclusiveness, and social cohesion in the light of changes in climate and environment, technology, demography, and unexpected shocks. The Partnership will fund research and innovation activities in the areas of the future of work, modernisation of social protection and essential services, education and skills development and a fair transition towards climate neutrality.

Applicants are encouraged to consider, where relevant, the services offered by the current and future EU-funded European Research Infrastructures, particularly those in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) domain^[5].

Where applicable, proposals should leverage the data and services available through European Research Infrastructures federated under the European Open Science Cloud (EOSC), as well as data from relevant Data Spaces. Particular efforts should be made to ensure that the data produced in the context of this research is FAIR (Findable, Accessible, Interoperable and Re-usable).

To maximise the impacts of R&I under this Destination in line with EU priorities, international cooperation is encouraged whenever relevant in the proposed topics.

Research on social and economic transformations funded by topics in the present Work Programme will build upon its predecessors in Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe and further push the boundaries of state-of-the-art knowledge. It will do so by further engaging with a vast array of stakeholders, not limited to universities and research centres, but also extending to social partners (trade unions and business organizations), civil society organizations, practitioners, VET providers, and SMEs.

The destination will rely on a carefully balanced mix of actions, to bring together a balanced and appropriate set of stakeholders to achieve research of the highest quality, while aiming at providing recommendations to policymakers at European, national, regional and local level that could have a beneficial societal and economic impact. In order to facilitate the latter, it will maximise the feedback to policy and the dissemination and exploitation of research and innovation results and practices in the domain of social and economic transformations.

[1] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/6abcc8e7-e685-11ee-8b2b-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

[2] https://eur-lex.europa.eu/legal-content/EN/TXT/?uri=celex%3A52021DC0101

[3] https://www.ohchr.org/en/instruments-mechanisms/instruments/convention-rights-persons-disabilities

[4] see topic HORIZON-CL2-2026-02-TRANSFO-01 in this Work Programme

[5] https://ri-portfolio.esfri.eu/ for example CESSDA - Consortium of European Social Science Data Archives

Expected Outcome:

Project should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Research funders, policymakers and research communities in the social sciences and humanities (SSH) are provided with a multi-annual R&I programme on social transformations and resilience, responding to megatrends like climate change and biodiversity loss, digitalisation, demographic changes and unexpected shocks.
• Research investments on social protection and essential services, future of work, education and skills, and a fair transition to climate neutrality are increased.
• Stakeholders, including social partners and civil society, and policymakers are provided with evidence-based knowledge, tools and innovative solutions, which contribute to new policies and strategies for strengthening resilience, fairness, inclusiveness and social cohesion at European, national and regional level.

Scope:

Europe is undergoing critical social transformations driven by macro drivers of change, such as climate change, biodiversity loss, digitalisation and demographic change, which have been accelerated by events, such as the COVID-19 pandemic and Russia’s war of aggression against Ukraine. These transformations bring challenges and opportunities such as changing skills demands and labour shortages, new digital and intergenerational divides, increasing inequalities and threats to social cohesion, and rising costs of social protection, among others. The magnitude of these social transformations as well as the heterogeneity in welfare systems and labour markets call for combined inter- and transdisciplinary knowledge and resource sharing, and long-term concerted actions, on the basis of a Strategic Research and Innovation Agenda (SRIA).

Proposals for the co-funded Social Transformations and Resilience (STR) partnership should aim at creating a 7-year research and innovation programme^[1] which will make use of the potential of SSH to build resilience, ensure fairness and inclusiveness and foster social cohesion in the light of changes in climate, the environment, technology, demography and unexpected shocks. To this end, proposals should pool the necessary financial resources from the participating national (or regional) research programmes, with a view to implementing joint calls for transnational proposals resulting in grants to third parties.

Innovations and scientific results achieved are expected to contribute to reaching EU priorities in the European Pillar of Social Rights, the EU Green Deal, to strengthening the European Research Area (ERA) and the European Education Area (EEA) and to contribute to designing better national, regional and local policies, in line with their respective strategies.

An additional objective is to contribute to the implementation of United Nations Sustainable Development Goals number 1 (No Poverty), 4 (Quality Education), 5 (Gender Equality), 8 (Decent Work and Economic Growth), 10 (Reducing Inequalities), 11 (Sustainable Cities and Communities), 13 (Climate Action), and 16 (Peace, Justice and Strong Institutions).

To achieve these objectives, the partnership is expected to launch annual transnational calls for proposals and additional activities in four interconnected impact areas:

• Supporting the modernisation of social protection systems and essential services
• Shaping the future of work
• Fostering education and skills development
• Contributing to a fair transition to climate neutrality

The STR partnership is expected to organise activities along the following six operational objectives:

• Collect data and evidence to measure social transformations, drawing from a variety of qualitative and quantitative methods in the social sciences and humanities, and use these to inform the development of evidence-based public policies and strategies.
• Promote comparative studies to identify and share best practices and failures at regional, national and EU level.
• Construct new, innovative ways to connect researchers with policymakers, stakeholders, citizens and social innovators in working together, communicating needs and results.
• Develop social and individual experimentations at all levels (subnational, national, European) to better understand the impact of social transformations and public policies.
• Encourage the development of new analytical, methodological and epistemological tools to better understand social transformations and resilience.
• Build capacity among the R&I community and policymakers to adjust and strengthen social infrastructures and services in light of unexpected shocks.

Proposals should build on the work of ERA-NETs CHANSE, as well as other relevant networks and initiatives, such as HERA and NORFACE, the Trans-Atlantic Platform for Social Sciences and Humanities (T-AP) and the Joint Programming Initiative More Years, Better Lives (JPI MYBL). By bringing together different stakeholders in academia, policymakers, social partners and trade associations, civil society and international organisations, the partnership should create a critical mass of knowledge and resources to implement a long-term SRIA.

The partnership should engage with the following stakeholders: (i) National research funding agencies and ministries in research and higher education; (ii) ministries responsible for labour, social affairs, employment, climate and environment, where possible, as well as other relevant public authorities in the four impact areas; (iii) researchers from the social sciences and humanities and transdisciplinary fields; (iv) social partners, citizens’ organisations and NGOs at local, national and EU level, such as trade unions, employer associations, practitioners and non-profit organisations advocating for the rights of disadvantaged groups; (v) private sector, which may include employment agencies, providers of essential services, social entrepreneurs, and private education institutions.

As the partnership touches upon fundamental aspects of peoples’ lives (work, social protection, education, and a fair green transition), it is instrumental to involve relevant actors, interest groups and potential end-users of the research results in the partnership’s activities. Gender and intersectional aspects should be considered throughout all activities and joint calls.

EU agencies (e.g. Eurofound, ELA, CEDEFOP^[2]) which deal with issues related to the four impact areas, such as working conditions, vocational education and training, and labour law, as well as international organisations such as the ILO and the OECD, need to be considered as stakeholders, as they can provide important inputs and resources to the partnership. Collaboration with existing research infrastructures (e.g. European Social Survey, SHARE, CLARIN, CESSDA, Eurostat) is encouraged. This should aim at facilitating access to data (e.g. on social security) and making use of relevant datasets in the projects that will be funded under this partnership.

The partnership is open to all EU Member States and countries associated to Horizon Europe and will remain open to third countries wishing to join. Partners are expected to contribute financially and/or through eligible activities^[3], depending on the level of ambition of the proposed activities. The partnership should be open to new partners throughout its lifetime. Importantly, the EU contribution will not be increased.

To ensure coherence and complementarity of activities and leverage knowledge and joint activities, the partnership is expected to establish synergies with relevant Horizon Europe projects under relevant Clusters of Pillar II, partnerships - such as the Driving Urban Transitions (DUT) partnership or the Clean Energy Transition (CET) partnership, the Biodiversa+ partnership, the Missions - such as the Mission on climate-neutral and smart cities or the Mission on Climate Adaptation - and the New European Bauhaus Facility, among others.

[1] With an additional three years to wind down, i.e. administer and report on FSTP projects launched with the last calls.

[2] In line with rules for Horizon Europe on working with EU’s Decentralised Agencies.

[3] Any eligible activity that is distinct from and complements the financial support to third parties/joint transnational calls and contributes to the objectives of the partnership.