Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society - 2027

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:

• Enhanced impact of EU-funded migration research by identifying and scaling up promising innovations, methodologies, and tools from relevant Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe projects.
• A policy innovation ecosystem: Foster collaboration between researchers, policymakers, and practitioners to adapt, scale, and deploy validated models, ensuring their scalability, sustainability, and practical application in diverse EU, national and local contexts.

Scope:

Despite significant EU investment in migration research, many innovative solutions to gain insights and foresight remain underutilized in policymaking and practice. This topic aims to bridge that gap by systematically identifying, assessing, and facilitating the adoption of promising approaches developed in past EU-funded migration related projects to ensure a better fungibility between knowledge-oriented activities on past or future trends of migrations and policy making.

Proposals should map and analyse research outputs, methodologies, and innovations from relevant Horizon 2020 and Horizon Europe migration projects, selecting those with high potential for policy uptake, operational implementation, market deployment and scaling. Proposals should consider ways to validate, adapt, and scale up these solutions across different governance levels (EU, national, local) and migration-related domains implementing high ethical standards and ensuring fundamental rights and privacy of all individuals affected. Applicants are encouraged to engage key stakeholders - including policymakers, migration practitioners, researchers (including from SSH disciplines), the private sector; groups or individuals that represent the interests of refugees and migrants and the civil society - to ensure that identified innovations align with real-world needs and implementation pathways and taking into account the political, legal, and cultural specificities of each Member State that influence implementation, while ensuring the solutions are transferable across contexts. Proposals are encouraged to take into consideration the assessment of the societal and political impacts as well as recommendations of previously funded Horizon research projects on migration. To that end, proposals are encouraged to carry out a mapping exercise.

Activities may include pilots, policy labs, co-creation processes, or other mechanisms to enhance the transferability of research outcomes into policies and operational frameworks.

A core element of the action will be fostering a structured dialogue between the research community and decision-makers to ensure continuous knowledge transfer and innovation mainstreaming. The initiative should contribute to a more dynamic, responsive and anticipatory EU migration ecosystem in the intersection of policy and research, in line with the objectives of the EU Pact on Asylum and Migration and other relevant policy frameworks.

Proposals may incorporate a gender-sensitive and intersectional approach in their research if relevant, by collecting data based for example on age, ability, ethnic and racial background, sex, socioeconomic status, and religion or belief to ensure that identified migration-related innovations align with real-world needs of people in migratory situation.

Proposals should delineate the plans for further applications of the knowledge, solutions and findings generated by their research at national and EU level. Knowledge and findings may be used with EU co-financing of instruments such as the Asylum, Migration and Integration Fund (AMIF) and/or subsequent funding instruments.

Proposals may envisage JRC participation, particularly to support the assessment of relevance, scalability and uptake of innovative solutions in migration management. The JRC could contribute with its knowledge of EU's migration systems, foresight, and capacity to bridge research and policymaking.