Fostering cooperation and integration between SSH and STEM research and innovation in the EU

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:

• Greater integration of SSH and STEM^[1] research and innovation in R&I initiatives funded at EU level, national and/or regional level, as well as in R&I policies by promoting dialogue, mutual learning and strategic cooperation among research funders and policy makers in the EU.
• Developing and maintaining a new, common, comprehensive ‘Monitoring and Impact Evaluation Framework’ for SSH integration in current and future EU R&I initiatives.

Enhanced facilitation of knowledge exploitation and support to the cooperation between projects and stakeholders, as well as R&I policies involved in projects and other types of cross-border networks dealing with SSH and STEM research and innovation.

Scope:

As mentioned in the Report ‘Align, Act, Accelerate: Research, Technology and Innovation to boost European Competitiveness’^[2], European RD&I can provide a new understanding of and solutions to tackle societal challenges. Social sciences and humanities (SSH) and Science, Technology, Engineering and Maths (STEM) improve the research activities, outcomes and impacts of Horizon Europe, because they enable a greater understanding of societal and competitiveness benefits. The cooperation of SSH and STEM in through trans- and interdisciplinary science is part of a science that is excellent, as it not only delivers excellence in the technical aspects, but also in taking account different societal needs. Thus, there is need for a leading role at European level for this cooperation.

Proposals are expected to create an SSH-STEM Action, that focusses on SSH-STEM monitoring, SSH-STEM facilitation and SSH-STEM promotion, at European level, which should also include all the following aspects:

1. Monitoring:

Monitoring is a major aspect of the essential activities^[3].

The action should create a new strategy in the first year of the project with the aim to develop and to monitor the SSH-STEM research cooperation (e.g. A.I. search tools). This monitoring strategy should meet the following requirements:

• Applicants should provide a clear justification of what significant steps forward they propose regarding methodology compared to previous reporting on SSH-STEM collaboration (see relevant reports), data management, analytical methods, data collection. Robust open data driven approaches are strongly encouraged.
• Applicants should describe what steps they will undertake to ensure the delivery of reporting on a yearly basis, which should include the data collection, data analysis, and interpretation of SSH-STEM related cooperation data (in EU-funded projects in Horizon Europe where there is SSH-STEM cooperation).

2. Facilitation and promotion:

Applicants should develop guidelines for SSH-STEM cooperation and support stakeholders in their projects when SSH-STEM cooperation is possible within the project, with a focus on increasing the quality and depth of cooperation and applying cooperation where most relevant. Applicants are encouraged to propose approaches, such as training to researchers on how to best integrate either STEM or SSH into their research. In addition, applicants should take into account the collaboration within SSH sciences on their own, as well as attention for not only quantitative SSH disciplines, but also qualitative SSH.

The action should organize an annual event showcasing SSH and STEM cooperation; with exchanges with / for policy makers, best practice examples and showcasing funded projects/ programs at EU, national and other levels.

The action is also expected to provide a quantitative and qualitative R&D evidence base on how to ensure that policies (including funding) aimed at stimulating research & innovation are appropriate for the sectors which have the greatest potential to contribute to Europe’s competitiveness. Applicants should propose evaluation metrics for SSH-STEM cooperation within research projects.

3. SSH/ STEM Science for Policy:

An important part of promotion is that the action acts as an SSH/ Science for policy exchange as well, providing the European Commission with feedback and advice on SSH-STEM cooperation, and informing the European Commission of the latest developments in SSH-STEM cooperation (which is why the inclusion of SSH experts is of the upmost importance).

The action is expected to be a forum that promotes dialogue and cooperation among research funders and policy makers in the EU (linked to the European Research Area) and beyond to further the integration of SSH and STEM in EU-funded R&I initiatives.

The action should provide monitoring guidance in SSH and STEM cooperation in R&I programmes at national/regional and European level.

The consortium should contribute to the priorities of the European Research Area, the EU Competitiveness Compass to strengthen the EU competitiveness and resilience. The consortium is expected to liaise with the two Cluster 2 co-funded European Partnerships and look into successful SSH integration projects and initiatives funded at EU level.

The action should recognize the diversity within SSH disciplines and their differing levels of integration with STEM. It should include targeted strategies to increase humanities’ participation alongside qualitative and quantitative social sciences to ensure balanced SSH representation. STEM domain prioritization should be driven by thematic relevance and feasibility for SSH cooperation.

Projects should adopt a gender-sensitive and intersectional approach when integrating SSH and STEM. This means considering a variety of societal needs and perspectives to ensure inclusivity and equality in research and innovation in EU and national R&I policies.

[1] SSH integration involves actively supporting interdisciplinary research and innovation that combines SSH with Science, Technology, Engineering, and Mathematics (STEM) to better address complex challenges such as climate change, public health issues, and technological innovation.

[2] https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/2f9fc221-86bb-11ef-a67d-01aa75ed71a1/language-en

[3] e.g. see the report ‘Integration of social sciences and humanities in Horizon 2020’ (https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/16b7df93-82b3-11ee-99ba-01aa75ed71a1/language-en) and the ‘Horizon Europe Integration’-report for 2021-2023 (https://op.europa.eu/en/publication-detail/-/publication/6cf8db13-62bb-11f0-bf4e-01aa75ed71a1/language-en).