The Road Ahead for Digital Social Innovation
Nesta and the Horizon 2020-funded DSI4EU project are organizing the workshop "The road ahead for digital social innovation: How can the EU support technology to tackle our biggest social challenges?", which will take place in Bruxelles, on 26th April.
To perceive and to believe: misperceptions about immigration and European solidarity
Along with the increased politicisation of EU affairs, immigration has become a central theme in the political debate on European integration. For this reason we recommend this article - published on the on-line platform EuVision - that investigates whether and how citizens' attitudes towards immigration are associated with their support for the EU and for policies favouring the inclusion of foreigners in domestic labour markets and welfare states.
Welfare state futures: supporting solidarity in Europe
Recently Ellen M. Immergut, Professor of Comparative Politics in the Department of Political and Social Sciences at Humboldt University of Berlin, has published the Policy Paper "Welfare state futures: supporting solidarity in Europe". The Paper reports the results of the transnational research programme "NORFACE Welfare State Futures", which has been focused on the future of the European welfare states.
Social Impact Investment in the European Union: the new Report by the Joint Research Centre
The Report "Social Impact Investment in the EU. Financing Strategies and Outcome Oriented Approaches for Social Policy Innovation: Narratives, Experiences, and Recommendations" has been launched on December 13th in occasion of the Second International Conference on Social Impact Investments, held in Rome. The aim of the study is to review social impact investing strategies proposed in EU Member States and to assess their impact in view of possible reforms to be introduced.
Beyond Imagination: a socially innovative Europe
With about 200 participants from over 50 countries, the conference "Beyond Imagination: a socially innovative Europe" attracted a wide range of experts from social innovation organisations and networks for an intense series of discussions, debates and networking activities between 12th and 13th November in Seville. Gianluca Misuraca, Senior Scientist at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre in Seville, tells us about the results of the event.
Investing for Impact: The EVPA Survey 2017/2018
EVPA releases "Investing for Impact: The EVPA Survey 2017/2018", the only study that explores where and how European venture philanthropy and social investment (VP/SI) organisations deploy resources to support social purpose organisations (SPOs). In 2018, venture philanthropy and social investment organisations report growing budgets coming from a diverse group of funders, more stable and professional human resources, and an improved pipeline management.
Council reaches a general agreement on EU Work-Life Balance Directive: are we moving forward?
On June 21st of June the Employment, Social Policy, Health and Consumer Affairs (EPSCO) Council reached a general approach on the Work-Life Balance Directive, proposed more than one year ago by the European Commission. The proposal will be vote in July: it will be the time in which European citizens will see if it will be possible or not for the European Union to make a real step forward towards a more social Europe.
The European Union and local social innovation
In this article, Sebastiano Sabato (researcher at the European Social Observatory, OSE) and Gert Verschraegen (Associate Professor in Sociology at the University of Antwerp) explore the European Union framework for social innovation, i.e. the role of the EU in promoting and supporting local socially innovative initiatives.
Social Innovation: AID:Tech, digital services for refugees
During the High-Level Conference on Opening up to an era of Social Innovation that took place last year in Lisbon, Gianluca Misuraca, Senior Scientist at the European Commission's Joint Research Centre, Institute for Prospective Technological Studies (JRC-IPTS), announced the Winners of the IESI Award. AID: Tech won the first prize in the category "Most Promising Solution".
Philanthropy in Europe: interview with Professor Oonagh B. Breen
The Donors and Foundations Networks in Europe (DAFNE) and the European Foundation Centre (EFC) have recently published the study "Enlarging the Space for European Philanthropy", that undertakes a scanning of the horizon of philanthropy's operating space. Percorsi di secondo welfare has interviewed the author, Oonagh B. Breen, Professor of Law at UCD Sutherland School of Law, about European philanthropy, the emerging trends and the potential impact on social innovation.
Opening up to an ERA of Social Innovation: the Conference About Social Research Progress and Excellency in EU
“Addressing the legacy of the crisis, from long-term unemployment to high levels of public and private debt in many parts of Europe, remains an urgent priority.” These are words from President Juncker in the White Paper on the future of Europe, stressing the importance of social progress as a collective duty. And in this very spirit the European Commission, the Portuguese Government and the Calouste Gulbenkian Foundation joined forces and announced “Opening up to an ERA of Social Innovation” Conference, to be held in Lisbon on 27 and 28 November.
The birth of Nesta Italia, a Foundation devoted to social innovation
October 17th marked the official start for Nesta Italia, an innovation-driven private Foundation aiming to bring to the Italian Third Sector "a proper revolution in the tackling of social problems". This brand-new institution is the result of the collaboration between Nesta, the philanthropic Foundation based in London with global scope, and the Italian Compagnia di San Paolo, ranking amongst the biggest private foundations in Europe.
First Concrete Initiative of the European Commission on Work-Life Balance
On Wednesday 26th of April 2017 in addition to proposing the European Pillar of Social Rights, the European Commission also put forward several legislative and non-legislative initiatives related to work-life balance. The proposal for a Directive of The European Parliament and of The Council on Work-Life Balance for Parents and Carers and Repealing Council Directive 2010/18 is an essential part of the European Pillar of Social Rights.
The European Commission cuts down on gender budgeting
The EU institutions have recognized that gender equality is a crucial factor in achieving growth, employment, and social inclusion. Gender issues have been tackled in a number of directives and the European Commission Strategic Engagement plan for Gender Equality 2016-2019 highlights the importance of allocating resources for this matter. Unfortunately the commitment of the EU to gender equality is still not adequately dealt with in its budget (and not only).
Call for Papers for a Special Issue of “European Societies”: “Crises and Solidarities in Europe”
The special issue of “European Societies” on “Crises and Solidarities in Europe” (planned to be published in late 2017) will invite contributions with a focus on different types and understandings of solidarity as reflected in the attitudes, discourses and behaviors of people in today’s Europe.
Maternity, paternity and parental leave in the European Union
Parental leave systems differ from country to country, and they do not always fit into classifications suitable for international comparison. For this reason, the harmonization of parental leave policy in the EU is likely to be a long and complex process due to various traditions across the member states and because of the fact that social policy falls under competence of member states. What is the EU doing on this front?
CfP Household Resilience and Crisis in Europe
The call for papers for the RESCuE Project Conference “Household Resilience and Crisis in Europe ” (Berlin, January 18th, 2017) is now open. The abstract deadline is October 17th, 2016.
Work, Welfare and Inequalities in Europe – The Research Perspective
On 10 October 2016 in Bruxelles the GD Research & Innovation is organizing a seminar to present research evidence in relation to the present and future of European welfare and work, reversing inequalities, social investment and poverty. Also attending the event Maurizio Ferrera, Secondo Welfare's Scientific Supervisor.
European Parliament promotes work-life balance
On September 13th the Members of the European Parliament voted in favour of the resolution “Creating labour market conditions favourable for work-life balance”, a clear political commitment of the European Parliament to strengthen work-life balance opportunities for European women and men. According to the Lithuanian co-rapporteur Vilija Blinkevičiūtė, by passing a resolution, the Parliament sends a clear message to the Commission.
The Right and the Welfare State
On 3 October in Milan, at the Department of Social and Political Sciences Università degli Studi di Milano, will take place the seminar "The Right and the Welfare State"
Social Clinics in Greece and the Welfare Provision
The growth of unemployment and the austerity policies imposed by the Greek governments to tackle the Greek debt had not left untouched the health sector, leaving around 1/3 of the country’s population uncovered. In order to contribute to the debate regarding the provision of “second welfare”, this article draws its attention to Greece and the case of social clinics, established all over the country to provide for free primary healthcare services and medicines to those without access to the healthcare system.
Female Poverty Trap: Gender Pension Gap in the European Union
For 25% of the European population, pensions are the primary source of income. Furthermore, the number of pensioners is expected to double in the next 40 years. In this situation is crucial, now more than ever, to find a way to keep the pensions both adequate and sustainable. Adequate for the need not only to avoid poverty but also to ensure acceptable life standards. And this is particularly challenging when it comes to women.
After the Brexit Referendum: Picking up the bits
What have we learned from the Brexit referendum campaign? Was this a national debate about UK membership of the European Union or a mix of quite different hopes and fears, using this referendum as a brief opportunity to express themselves? And what can Europe learn from the result? Professor Graham Room shares his opinion with us, away from austerity and towards new forms of solidarity.
Food Poverty in Italy: a New Book Illustrating Second Welfare’s Answers
The recent volume “Povertà alimentare in Italia: le risposte del secondo welfare” (Food Poverty in Italy: Second welfare’s answers) confronts the phenomenon of food poverty in our country as part of a more general welfare crisis. The aim is to underline the perverse dynamics that fuel food poverty (particularly linked to recurrent weaknesses of our welfare model) but also to illustrate attempts to contrast it.
Coworking on holiday: a new frontier for work-life balance?
After trying to reconcile work and family, many people are now trying to reconcile working life and vacation. Due to a rising flexibility of work, a major number of people find it difficult to completely unplug from work, even for a short period of time. Aware of this new tendency, tourists’ facilities furnish both WI-FI and PCs to their hosts. The trend seems nnonetheless to go even further with the advent of “co-working on vacation”. This solution generates new reflections concerning the boundaries of work and how it can be defined.
The challenges of the European social model according to Elsa Fornero
Elsa Fornero is Professor of Economics at the University of Turin and an honorary fellow of the Collegio Carlo Alberto. She is a leading expert on pensions and welfare, and served as Minister of Labor, Social Policies and Gender Equality in the Monti Cabinet. In this capacity she devised, among other things, a key reform of the Italian pension system. EuVisions Observatory met with Ms. Fornero to have a brief chat about the multiple challenges of the European social model.
Save the Children's strategy to fight educational poverty
Access to knowledge and culture remains a problem for many children in Italy, in particular for those who are born in underprivileged familiar contexts. This is the bitter reality that emerges from “Illuminiamo il futuro 2030”, Save the Children’s research launched in 2014 and specifically dedicated to educational poverty. In this paper, Save the Children has identified a strategy to “illuminate the future” of children who live in Italy and to eliminate educational poverty before 2030.
Warm up: Caritas and the Navy together for migrants’ first-hand assistance
In order to help the forces engaged in EUNAVFOR MED Mission - Operation Sophia, Caritas Italy is committed to furnish clothes and shoes to Operation’s command, that will redistribute them to refugees during rescue operations. The initiative “Warm Up” has been presented at the national conference of Caritas Italy. The latter will help Navy’s commands in the rescue of migrants.
A brighter future for Europe: Innovation, integration and the migrant crisis
On the eleventh and the twelfth of April, an event promoted by the European Commission - in collaboration with Impact Hub Siracusa - entitled “A brighter future for Europe: Innovation, integration and the migrant crisis” took place in Siracusa. The event (that lasts one day and a half) aimed at exploring integration policies and practices for migrants within Member States while connecting and creating new synergies between projects for future collaborations.
Call for papers for the Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA)
From 24 to 26 August in Utrecht (Netherlands) will host the Annual Conference of the European Group for Public Administration (EGPA). Is now open the Call for Papers "Cross-sectoral coordination in health and social policy" promoted by the Permanent Study Group XX "Welfare State Governance & Professionalism"
Social Impact Bond: neglected causes and too much attention on consequences and foresights
Opinions on impact investing and particularly on social impact bonds can significantly differentiate themselves, because the approach assumed to understand the impact investing phenomenon play a crucial role in identifying the nature and the functions of impact investing as well. For this reason, it is useful to attentively review the contents and the topics recently reported by Rangan and Chase in the Stanford Social Innovation Review, together with two answers that follow it.
Cohousing: a solution for the Elderly?
Italian social protection expenditure dedicates several resources to old age. However, welfare services are not sufficient anymore for satisfying the large and complex demand of the aging population. It is consequently urgent to think about alternatives in diverse sectors, such as the housing policies one, where proposals such as cohousing could have a very positive outcome but still aren’t well-known. What is cohousing and which viability can it have in Italy?
Italian Mutual Aid Societies
Italian public healthcare cannot provide all services requested by a new society that is increasingly demanding, because of the social and cultural changes. Furthermore the long-lasting-economic crisis has exacerbated the situation by contributing to the impoverishment of Italian families and by increasing the number of people who fit in the ‘grey slot’ and who do not have the means to access private healthcare. In this context, it is fundamental to start a fruitful collaboration between public and private actors in order to elaborate and strengthen health sector proposals directed at satisfying citizens’ needs.
The Italian Jobs Act: new opportunities for parents?
Work and family reconciliation policies include political measures in favour of parenthood and care taking that, according to the Italian Prime Minister Matteo Renzi, might contribute to tackling the issue of the low Italian female employment rate. In 2015, the Jobs Act experimentally introduced new provisions for working parents. Among them, extended parental leaves and more working time flexibility. Will they be enough to tackle the problem of low female employment?
The International Network for Comparative Analysis of Social Inequalities
The purpose of the projet INCASI is to conduct comparative research in the area of social inequalities, in this case in relation to Europe and Latin America. Through this network the hope is to foster a space for collective reflection and the development of synergies between network partners that allow to undertake innovative studies whose outputs have an impact on academic and policy debates. The project will also contribute to informing the design of public policies to tackle social inequalities.
Achieving a European "Social Triple A"
On January 27 the College of Commissioners hosted an orientation debate on President Juncker's initiative on establishing a European Pillar of Social Rights. The initiative is part of the Commission's goal to achieve a European "Triple A" in employment and social affairs. The DG Research and Innovation, Open and Inclusive Societies asked Professor Maurizio Ferrera to elucidate the issues at stake and to help set the parameters of a constructive debate.
Paper prize for researchers in early stages of their career 2015
The CES Research Network European Integration and the Global Political Economy and the journal Comparative European Politics announce the 2015 round of their annual journal article prize competition, in collaboration with the journal Comparative European Politics (CEP).
The gradual development of an EU framework for social innovation
Social innovation is considered a key tool for achieving the objective of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth envisaged by the Europe 2020 Strategy. Against this backdrop, research carried out within the ImPRovE project has investigated how social innovation made its way onto the European Union agenda and which kinds of instruments and resources the EU has made available in order to promote and support it. The analysis concerns the period 2006-2014 and it mainly focuses on social innovation in the field of poverty and social exclusion.
Alpine Space Programme: in Piemonte will be experimented the Community Nurse
In the surroundings of Cuneo, starting from the second half of february, a new professional figure will be experimented which could end up modifying the overall structure of home help in the Region of Piemonte. We are speaking about the Family and Community Nurse who will be responsible for helping elderly people to live autonomously in their own place as long as possible.
Working poor contribute to the rise of food poverty in Europe
A long time has passed since, supported by the words of ‘We are the world’, the first world hunger campaign was launched. At that time and in that particular context, ‘world’ was conceived as some far away lands, and Africa was often one of them. With the advent of globalization, world hunger surely became more visible. However, it is only with the recent financial crisis that European countries recognized to be ‘hungry’ and were consequently forced to question their welfare as well as their labour model. Indeed, among the people who can today be categorized as ‘hungry’, working poor are clearly a rising number.
Poor, scarcely poor and almost poor: what's going on in Italy?
The last ISTAT Report on poverty provides the most updated picture of the Italian situation. The Report recounts that the phenomenon of poverty is substantially stable. Statistics show that neither absolute nor relative poverty displayed any significant variation if compared to 2013. However, in order to understand the current principal tendencies and the differences that social and territorial issues can entail, a close analysis of the elaborated valuations is needed.
Welcome ''Second Welfare'': our new section in English
Starting November 2015, the website of the research project Percorsi di secondo welfare hosts a new section, Second Welfare, in order to collect a selection of our contents translated into English. The section has been envisaged as a new tool for international researchers and followers from all over the world, allowing to understand the idea of a “second welfare” and spread the word.
How is occupational welfare spreading in Italy?
The 2015 Welfare Report has recently been presented in Milan by OD&M Consulting, a Gi Group society specialized in HR and flexible benefits. In order to realize this report, two web surveys - one addressed to enterprises and the other one to employees - have been proposed. Between March and April 2015, more than 300 employees and 112 employers have been involved in order to map welfare’s progress in Italy as well as to understand companies’ objectives and verify the results in those that have already implemented particular measures. Also, interrogating employees has helped to comprehend the extent to which beneficiaries were satisfied.
Why should people in the US be interested in the Italian prison system?
The new working paper of 2WEL serie "Work and forgiveness behind bars. Giotto Cooperative in Due palazzi prison in Padua" reviews the over-twenty-year history of Giotto Cooperative, the various tasks it introduced into Padua prison and the best practices it developed to rehabilitate prisoners. This paper also reports outcomes from several interviews to prisoners who presently work in the Cooperative, which clearly reveal some peculiar aspects of the "Giotto model".
First Report on Second Welfare in Italy
In the last few months we have been gathering increasing interest from abroad, up to the point that the second welfare approach - as also witnessed by the European Economic and Social Committe’s Milan Declaration – is gaining importance at the European level. For this reason, and thanks to the support of Fondazione Cariplo, the executive summary of the First Report on Second Welfare in Italy has been translated in English and it is now available on our website, in order to raise awareness and foster the debate on second welfare in all those national contexts in which similar developments are underway.
