TRANSEUROWORKS

TRANSEUROWORKS DS HORIZON EUROPE

Transforming European Work and Social Protection: A new proactive Welfare State fit for the Future World of work (TRANSEUROWORKS)

Principal; Investigator: (opens in a new window)Dr Dorota Szelewa, Asst. Prof. in Social justice.

Postdoctoral Fellow: (opens in a new window)Dr Ieva Zumbyte

Funded by European Commission, Horizon Europe research programme)

European Commission Website: (opens in a new window)https://transeuroworks.eu/

Background

For the last two decades, European countries have faced unprecedented structural changes due to digitalisation, automation; the internationalisation of the workforce; and the transition towards a green economy. How national and EU-level interventions will mediate the effects of these transformations will profoundly impact the future of European citizens, the economy, and political stability. TransEuroWorkS' multi-level, comparative, and multi-method strategy for scientific and social impact is driven by an understanding that social protection must be sustainable, inclusive, and mobile to address the complex and interlocking transformations of the near future.

Consortium

TransEuroWorkS is composed of a team of 10 partners, from 8 countries (Belgium, Denmark, Ireland, Netherlands, Slovakia, Spain, Switzerland, and the UK). The consortium brings together a diverse set of academically excellent partners and communication experts, that provide, in a multi-disciplinary approach, the necessary connections and expertise in political science, social policy, demography, sociology, political psychology, and economics, to achieve the project objectives.

Research question

TransEuroWorkS addresses three main questions: how do decarbonisation, technological change, and internationalisation of the workforce impact the world of work in Europe? How can the EU and member states become more resilient and responsive to these changes and their impacts? And what are the implications of the changing forms of work and work relations on the well-being and social protection of European citizens?

Aims and Objectives

Overall, TransEuroWorks has five specific objectives:

To synthesize and expand existing knowledge of the confluence of the three labour market transformations and the sustainability of social protection systems in Europe today and in the future. This includes evaluating the performance and impact of previous efforts to mitigate the risks posed by increasing digitalization, automation, decarbonization, and intra and extra worker mobility.
To develop a theoretical framework and strategic research agenda on future research on proactive welfare policies based on the principles of a sustainable(i.e., a welfare system policy which is politically, economically, and environmentally sustainable), mobile (i.e., agile and responsive in attending to needs created by the movement of people between countries, sectors, jobs, and types of employment transitions) and inclusive(i.e., promoting social inclusion and well-being and avoiding the systematic creation of winners and losers) social protection in a context of multiple transformations.
To create and disseminate new multi-national and multi-level, integrated comparative methods to monitor and evaluate the effects of ongoing and future state interventions to current and future labour market transformations and reduce social exclusion, inequality, and poverty across the life course. These will be based on an understanding of the capacity of governments to take a proactive role in shaping labour and welfare contexts currently and in the future.
To propose and test evidence-based policy innovations that can specifically target the gaps and problem areas identified in our research. This will include new experimental approaches to evaluating policy interventions (using field and survey experiments) and integrative approaches to evaluating multiple transformations.
To incorporate engagement with diverse stakeholders and citizens' attitudes in the co-innovation of inclusive, resilient, and politically sustainable policy responses with a vision towards greater EU-level coordination.

Methodology

TransEuroWorkS adopts a Europe-wide comparative analysis of the impact of labour market transformations following its conceptual framework.
In quantitative research designs and analyses which are going to be based on labour force surveys, social and working conditions surveys, the target sample of TransEuroWorkS covers the 27 EU member states.
When collecting original primary TransEuroWorkS survey data researchers will consider 15 European states in their sample representative of the regional diversity in terms of economic development, social and political dynamics, labour market structure differences, demographics, and the regional distribution. In this primary data collection, with respect to case selection,TransEuroWorkS will target Sweden, Denmark, Germany, Belgium, the Netherlands, Switzerland, France, Italy, Spain, Greece, United Kingdom, Ireland, Slovakia, Poland, and Romania.
Furthermore, the analyses will be carried out on a smaller selection of case studies when conducting policy analyses and field experiments. In this respect, the research covers Northern, Western, Southern, ad Eastern European countries from Europe and provides cases that are representative of the conventional taxonomies of the varieties of industrial relations, welfare state regimes, and social protection institutional regulations.
In addition, the TransEuroWorkS research will cover energy supply, mining, recycling, production of goods, construction, and information technologies concerning the exploration of the impact of green transition and digitalization and the impact of flexible work relations on social dialogue and access to social protection.
Furthermore, given the conceptual emphasis on multi-level governance and multi-level actor approach, TransEuroWorkS mobilizes a social and policy stakeholder board, including institutions in Brussels that organise the interests of the target groups of the project.
Therefore, TransEuroWorkS will co-create and co-design its policy recommendations and research tools with a widespread stakeholder network.

Expected Outputs

Types of data/research outputs: TransEuroWorkS is fully committed to open access to scientific knowledge and transparency in knowledge generation. The project entails both the use of existing secondary data sources and the generation of new data and indicators: The first data output is qualitative data: case studies, semi-structured interviews, standardised policy measurement instruments, policy analyses. The second source of data output is the management and analyses of secondary quantitative data resulting in the research partners' calculations, indicators, and new measures. As a specific output of TransEuroWorkS, will create a re-usable qualitative and quantitative policy legislation and evaluation dataset). Thirdly, TransEuroWorkS will collect observational and experimental survey data from individuals and a company-level survey with social partner representatives. Finally, we will produce field experiment data. On this basis a series of working papers, journal articles, policy briefs will be published to popularise the project results.

Expected impact

TransEuroWorkS will engage a diverse range of stakeholders, policy makers, and the scientific community using a set of measures to maximize impact that derives from the results of the project. The impact sought by the project can be classified in three areas: scientific, policy, and societal.

Scientific Impact: TransEuroWorkS will seek to have an impact on the scientific research community working on social policy and the role of the welfare state cutting across different disciplines and methodological approaches.

Policy Impact: TransEuroWorkS will provide the grounds to improve the knowledge basis that policymakers can tap into to address pressing policy questions. The policy implications generated by TransEuroWorkS will be ready to be exploited by policymakers working on the adaptation of welfare states to provide proactive social protection by making them more sustainable, mobile, and inclusive.

Broader Societal Impact: A substantial part of the impact strategy of TransEuroWorkS will be concerned with its societal outreach beyond the scientific and policymaking communities. Given that the social transformations tackled by the project affect society at many levels, TransEuroWorkS will focus on targeting relevant societal actors as well as involving them directly in the development of the project. TransEuroWorkS tackles the effects of broad social transformations that have important effects on the world of work.