The Research Seminar will take place on 25 January 2024. It will present and discuss recent and ongoing research concerning the potential role of social investment policies in promoting upward social convergence in the EU.

In recent years, the EU has faced significant challenges, such as the Covid-19 pandemic and the Russian invasion of Ukraine, with the consequent energy price crisis and additional market instability. These crises intensified the political debate on the need for upward economic and social convergence to achieve social cohesion, reduce socioeconomic imbalances and strengthen social resilience and solidarity in the EU. The digital and green transitions, demographic challenges, and increasing geopolitical and economic uncertainty underscore the importance of upward social convergence.

In this context, social investments play a key role in promoting upward social convergence and the overall well-being of EU citizens, while contributing to fiscal sustainability and economic growth. They encompass a wide range of policy areas, including early childhood education and care, education, training, healthcare, housing, and active labour market policies. Their impact is likely to depend on the policy area, the design of the intervention and the time period considered and may vary across Member States or economic sectors. For example, investments in early childhood education and care might increase the labour market participation of parents in the short term but are also expected to improve the future labour market outcomes of children, with returns only materialising in the long term. Thus, appropriately designed and implemented social investment policies can serve as economic stabilisers during crises, mitigating the shocks that disrupt economies and promoting long-term economic growth.

This research seminar will aim to fill the analytical gaps on this topic, such as the absence of a universally accepted definition of social investments and the lack of a consistent framework for the measurement of their returns or determining the social investment gaps related to achieving social cohesion, or green and digital transition. Furthermore, it will try to explore the hindering and promoting factors to upward social convergence, with a particular focus on social investment policies. 

Call for abstracts

The aim of this research seminar is to bring together the latest empirical research on the role of social investments in driving upward social convergence in the EU. The EU dimension of the research should be reflected in (comparative) studies covering two or more EU countries or by demonstrating the research's relevance for EU policies. Topics of interest include, but are not limited to:

• The drivers and hindering factors of upward social convergence, with a focus on social investment.
• The concept, definition, measurement and indicators of social investments and their variation across EU Member States and over time.
• The impact of various types of social investment policies on growth and fiscal sustainability.
• The impact of various types of social investment policies on reducing socioeconomic disparities among EU Member States and over time.
• The secondary effects of social investments on factors such as labour market performance, skills development, poverty reduction, and social protection among EU Member States and over time.
• The potential of social investments to serve as economic stabilisers during crises, contributing to long-term economic growth and fiscal sustainability.
• Social investment gaps in relation to social cohesion, green and digital transitions.

Please submit your abstract (2000 characters maximum – including research questions, methodology applied, main results) and biography (1200 characters maximum) electronically by 15 November 2023 via this link.

Presented analytical work should preferably be empirical and cover the EU, or be based on methodologies that could be scaled up at EU-level. The methods and data used should be shortly presented in the abstracts.

Please indicate in the abstract:

• What is the target population/geographic scope? What are the policy implications and relevance outside the geographic scope of analysis (external validity at the EU-27 level)?
• What are the empirical methods?
• What is the underlying evidence? (e.g., survey and sample sizes, date of fieldwork/waves, administrative data and source)
• What are the results of the empirical work? 

Abstracts will be assessed based on their quality and relevance to the work of the SSM team.

The SSM Research Seminar will take place in Brussels, with face-to-face presentations by the invited speakers and the possibility for the participants to join online. The presentations will follow a blended learning approach (one speaker per paper in case of co-authored papers). During the Research Seminar, speakers will be given the opportunity to respond to questions from the audience and actively participate in the discussion with economists and analysts working in policy-making organisations and their academic peers.  

Background

The Social Situation Monitor (SSM) Research Seminars aim to provide a forum to discuss the theoretical, methodological and policy implications of the latest economic and social research. More specifically, SSM Research Seminars aim to inform:

• the economic and social analysis of the European Commission in general, and the Commission’s Employment and Social Developments in Europe (ESDE) review in particular;
• the economic and social analysis of the European Commission’s stakeholders;
• the economic and social policies of the European Commission and its stakeholders.