Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society 2026

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:

Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Provide policymakers with a more detailed understanding of the contribution of basic skills on the economy in the short and medium term, with a focus on their contribution to productivity and innovation, to sustain EU competitiveness and growth.
• Develop actionable advice about how, in a lifelong perspective, education and training systems can help foster basic skills.
• Promote productivity, innovation, competitiveness and growth, including by reducing gender, disability and socioeconomic gaps in basic skills.

Scope:

In the context of the Union of Skills, the 2025 European Commission’s Action Plan on Basic Skills identifies five basic skills: literacy, mathematics (including also financial literacy), science, digital and citizenship. Strong basic skill levels among young people and adults are key to sustaining EU productivity, innovation, competitiveness and growth, as also explained in the 2024 Draghi Report^[1]. Other key EU initiatives support lifelong learning as a driver for productivity, innovation, and economic growth, for instance the 2022 Council Recommendation encouraging the implementation of Individual Learning Accounts (ILAs) in Member States.

Evidence of causal relationship between basic skills on the one hand and productivity, innovation, competitiveness and economic growth, on the other is still limited in Europe, both at microeconomic and macroeconomic levels, mostly due to scarce use of longitudinal data. This also applies to the interplay between the basic skills and other skills (such as socio-emotional skills) in promoting productivity, innovation, competitiveness and growth.

There is also a need for better evidence (including from SSH disciplines) on which education and training policies and practices at all levels (school education, vocational education and training, higher education, adult education) can be effective in reducing gender, disability and socioeconomic disparities in basic skill acquisition and in subsequent labour market outcomes. The research should also better explore the competences that learners need to learn effectively with AI-based tools. Additional evidence is required on how to increase female participation in STEM and how to address teacher shortages, as well as on how to address barriers faced by persons with disabilities.

Proposals should address those research gaps by applying rigorous quantitative methods with a longitudinal perspective for their analysis and could complement them with qualitative research methods. Proposals should also evaluate the inclusion aspect, and the costs associated with the policies or practices analysed. Cooperation with education and training stakeholders is encouraged. Clustering and cooperation with other selected projects under the call HORIZON-CL2-2024-TRANSFORMATIONS-01-10: “Effective education and labour market transitions of young people” and other relevant projects, as well as the Social Transformations and Resilience Partnership are strongly encouraged.

[1] https://commission.europa.eu/topics/eu-competitiveness/draghi-report_en