DignityFIRM contributes to improving conditions of irregular migrants (IM) working in Farm to Fork (F2F) labour markets in four EU member states (IT, NL, PL, SP) and two associated countries (MO, UA). To derive structural recommendations for improvements, we analyze regulatory infrastructures that govern these conditions distinguishing five influential spheres of stakeholders at the EU, national, and local levels, and at the level of employers and IM themselves. The focus on IM in F2F labour markets is timely given the instrumental role of these industries in securing EU livelihoods, the high systemic dependency on IM that coincides with persistent group vulnerabilities. By providing knowledge and innovative tools to improve regulatory infrastructures, this project enhances IM’s access to basic rights and services, and improves their precarious working conditions. Doing so, we contribute to systemic resilience of F2F industries and the EU’s ambitions for social and economic transformation. Our project adopts a mixed-method research approach, that includes a special focus on the division of labour in F2F markets with respect to gender, ethnicity, socio-economic status, health and safety. Doing so, we provide new knowledge on 1) the multidimensional regulatory infrastructure and the conditions of IM therein, 2) their access to basic rights and social services, and 3) employer reliance on IMs. We build on our analysis of the current situation, and work towards innovative solutions by developing Dignity tools in co-creation with stakeholders across the five stakeholder spheres. We propose group sensitive policy measures at EU, national, and local level, across four policy domains: migration management, EU pillar social rights, labour market sustainability and corporate social responsibility. Doing so, we create a pathway for impact towards upholding IMs’ access to rights and services and simultaneously addressing labour market needs and wellbeing of host communities.

Achieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the European Union's policies on environmental and social sustainability requires a comprehensive measure of human progress that does not focus solely on GDP. However, the evidence on alternative approaches is fragmented and the lack of consensus on competing indicators and policy frameworks is a mAchieving the United Nations Sustainable Development Goals and the European Union's policies on environmental and social sustainability requires a comprehensive measure of human progress that does not focus solely on GDP. However, the evidence on alternative approaches is fragmented and the lack of consensus on competing indicators and policy frameworks is a major obstacle to setting policy goals that promote multi-dimensional well-being and to monitoring and measuring progress. MERGE addresses these challenges by providing a forum for dialogue, co-creation and knowledge exchange, and by linking cutting-edge research and policy practice. A consortium of leading researchers and key communities in the field, MERGE brings together three recently launched higher education research consortia (SPES, ToBe, WISE Horizons) and an ERC grant (REAL). To scale up results, MERGE provides a framework for creating and strengthening a multidisciplinary community of researchers, a technical and knowledge network, a policy network and a network of civil society actors. Through these networks, MERGE aims to build a broad consensus on easy-to-use and acceptable indicators and frameworks for measuring multidimensional well-being within planetary boundaries in the EU and Member States, as well as in global organisations and civil society. MERGE participants will benefit from collaborative and training events, analyses, indicators, datasets and policy briefings. Through knowledge exchange, stakeholders and researchers can adopt and develop a systematic and coherent understanding of the sustainable economy paradigm in their own work.

ToBe aims to build an understanding of a sustainable wellbeing economy by developing integrated policies and transformative indicators. We contribute to theoretical and empirical knowledge in the field of sustainability transformation and advance understanding of sustainable wellbeing and inclusive economy beyond GDP. Together with researchers, policymakers and citizens in Europe, Africa and South America, we study how mindsets, indicators, innovations and policies could better work together towards the sustainability paradigm. We bring together green growth and postgrowth initiatives to create a novel understanding of economic growth. We also consider environmental and social justice when conceptualising sustainable wellbeing and identifying transformative indicators of a sustainable wellbeing economy. We provide new empirical knowledge on economic development, social outcomes and sustainability to address entangled societal challenges and to envision integrated policy solutions. All this contributes to an ecological macroeconomic model assessing integrated policy packages and to a synthesis typology of an accelerating sustainability paradigm. ToBe’s societal impact is linked directly to Europe’s policy goal of becoming a carbon-neutral continent by 2050. We will improve policy making capacity and coherence by exploring social and economic resilience and sustainability, as well as integrating different policies towards this end. The results will help create a sustainable and inclusive economy, as well as a shared vision for EU-Africa relations that build on sustainable growth. Our co-creation platform will strengthen epistemic communities to drive carbon-neutrality and tackle inequality and vulnerability in the context of entangled crises by a better understanding of trade-offs and synergies between economic growth and a sustainable wellbeing economy, including logics of change across different dimensions of sustainable development.

Culminating more than a decade of crisis in Europe, the Covid-19 pandemic has opened an unprecedented window of opportunity for institutional and policy change, not only at the “reactive” level of emergency responses, but also to tackle more broadly the many socio-political challenges caused or exacerbated by Covid-19. Building on this premise, REGROUP (Rebuilding governance and resilience out of the pandemic) aims to: 1) provide the European Union with a body of actionable advice on how to rebuild post-pandemic governance and public policies in an effective and democratic way; anchored to 2) a map of the socio-political dynamics and consequences of Covid-19; and 3) an empirically-informed normative evaluation of the pandemic. REGROUP pursues this threefold objective via a multi-level (national, supranational, international) and multi-sphere (political, societal, ideational, digital) research approach, and guided by three overarching analytical themes: “reordering”; “risk”; “resilience”. We operate in nine collaborative work packages—grouped in three blocks: “diagnosis”, “evaluation”, and “prescription”—bringing together expertise and methods from a range of social sciences and humanities. Doing so, we advance the state of the art conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically. REGROUP is conducted by a consortium of 13 internationally renowned institutions, committed to scholarly excellence, inclusiveness, and open science. The project is designed to achieve a high degree of policy, societal, and scientific impact, which it will achieve via a multi-pronged dissemination and communication strategy. This includes links to some of the EU’s main debates and events, such as the Health Union, the Green Deal, the Digital Decade, the Economic Governance Review, the Conference on the Future of Europe, and the 2024 European Parliament elections.

Delivering Responsible Research and Innovation (RRI) requires researchers and research agencies to balance many political, institutional and professional contradictions and constraints. These are as difficult and demanding in non-medical fields as in biomedical research. Researchers, reviewers, regulators and policymakers are tested by the diverse codes of ethical practice and regulations, by the complexities of relevant data protection legislation, by inconsistencies in the applications of regulations and by the practical professional pressures of acting in diverse non-medical research fields. To use research effectively policy makers need to trust in the validity and reliability of research findings. PRO-RES will address these constraints by delivering a supported guidance framework that is comprehensive, flexible and durable, covers the spectrum of non-medical sciences and offers practical solutions for all stakeholders that will comply with the highest standards of research ethics and integrity. This framework will take into account previous examples of good work and best practice, and drive to deliver a set of pragmatic solutions building on previous work and creating strong links with ongoing projects. In terms of post-2020 European strategic funding policy this will offer a strong and sustainable contribution to RRI via a comprehensive ethics and integrity framework similar to Oviedo/Helsinki which will have been constructed in negotiation with relevant stakeholders and so will be acceptable to and accessible by all stakeholders. The proposed set of solutions will promote an ethics framework for research and innovation, help promote more responsible research engagements and enable policymakers to make more effective use of non-medical scientific research information.