Fostering competences for the green transition

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, education and training institutions, and social partners with a solid understanding of which competences young people and workers need to support the EU economy towards the green transition to reach carbon neutrality and protect natural ecosystems.
• Develop actionable advice to policymakers and education and training institutions about which education and training programmes and policy measures can promote the acquisition of those competences by young people and workers in a lifelong perspective, including the gender and disability dimensions.
• Provide policymakers with guidance on how to address the interconnection between fostering the competences for the green transition and those for the digital transition.

Scope:

Environmental challenges have been one of the key drivers of labour demand and skills supply across all sectors for the past years. More data and analysis from research on competences that young people and workers need for the green transition are warranted to properly implement the Union of Skills and support people in upskilling and reskilling. The availability of robust quantitative data is still limited, both at national and international levels. Moreover, most available research on the green transition focuses on macro-level policies, overlooking how workers and communities can drive change.

Fostering competences for the green transition also requires a better understanding of young people’s and workers’ attitudes, concerns and behaviours about climate change and climate action, biodiversity loss, pollution, circular economy and sustainable economic growth, as well as of new ways of developing capabilities and skills^[1]. The transferability of skills across occupations and the need for upskilling and reskilling the current workforce are also key to advancing the green transition. These issues are interconnected with the ongoing digital transition.

The ‘green transition’ embraces a wide and diverse set of sectors and activities without one specific set of generic competences (in other words skills vary strongly depending on the sector). For example, according to Cedefop^[2], among high climate impact sectors the demand for skills for the green transition is the highest in energy. Therefore, proposals should focus on one of the following sectors, which are particularly affected by an increasing demand for green expertise: 1) sustainable agriculture and food production, 2) automotive industry, 3) energy and 4) construction, 5) nature and climate adaptation.

Proposals should use quantitative and qualitative methods (including from SSH disciplines) and apply a lifelong perspective to address several research questions, such as:

• What are the most relevant competences required to actively contribute to the green transition in these industries?
• Which assessment methods and frameworks are most effective in measuring readiness for green jobs and sustainable innovation?
• What roles do digital skills and technological literacy play in equipping young people and workers for the green transition and how can education and training systems exploit the synergies between the competences for the green and digital transitions?
• How can policymakers, education and training institutions and employers collaborate to identify and address skills shortages that may hinder the green transition?
• How can vocational education and training systems become more accessible and flexible to respond effectively to evolving labour market needs for the green transition?
• How to ensure that women and persons with disabilities benefit equally from the opportunities of the green transition?
• How does an effective lifelong acquisition of competences for the green transition occur?
• How can we design and implement inclusive systems that improve career advice, and support the best decisions by all learners regarding t their career choices and pathways?
• What works to get disadvantaged children onto the pathways that are proven to lead to upwards mobility (including helping those who are not in education, employment or training) and raising ambition where needed? At what age are interventions most effective?
• How can policymakers best create collaborations with industry to increase training opportunities, to ensure learners are as prepared as much as possible for work, and to reduce barriers to those from disadvantaged backgrounds?

Proposals should also consider the gender and disability dimensions in their analysis (ensuring that women, as well as persons with disability, benefit equally from employment and earning opportunities linked to the green transition). Clustering and cooperation among selected projects under this call topic and other relevant projects, for example from the Horizon 2020 European Green Deal Call and their results, are strongly encouraged.

Proposals should also explore synergies with the New European Bauhaus (NEB) Facility, including notably the NEB Academy on skills for sustainable construction, and the European Partnership on Social Transformations and Resilience.

[1] GreenComp, the European competence framework on sustainability, provides a conceptual model on the knowledge, skills and attitudes which support sustainability in a lifelong learning context.

[2] https://www.cedefop.europa.eu/files/9197_en.pdf