Background
Within its ‘bridging function’ the European Centre fosters collaboration between governments and organisations from the EU and (potential) candidate countries as well as from countries of the Eastern partnership. The Launch event "Building Bridges in Social Welfare Policy in Eastern Europe" (19 September 2016 in Vienna) pointed towards the need for capacity building regarding joint research, project acquisition and project development in the areas of youth unemployment, labour market policy, healthy and active ageing and demographic change, to just name some potential cooperation areas.

The Bridge Building Summer School on Social Welfare is a response to this need. The starting points of the summer school are joint economic and societal challenges the EU countries, the potential candidate countries and the EaP countries are facing, such as the current migration wave, demographic change and the various economic challenges in the aftermath of the crisis. The challenges in social welfare will be reflected and answers to overcome the challenges discussed with both, academic inputs and good practice contributions (e.g. social innovations). By implementing the summer school we build upon our network established between researchers, governments and civil society organisations, in particular the Eastern European Social Policy Network (Link to be provided soon). Speakers from research and applied science as well as from civil society and from public authorities will provide high-level inputs and up-to-date knowledge for the summer school participants; thereby stimulating policy dialogue among its participants and beyond.

Objectives
The summer school’s objective is to contribute to improving European Cohesion by:

1. building capacities of different stakeholders, sectors, countries, policies, and systems;
2. providing training on innovative approaches, good practices and up-to-date research results, and on project acquisition and project management; and by
3. joint idea development with participants from different countries and with different institutional background (public, private and civil).

Methods
The summer school will stimulate an interactive, participatory and reflective learning process amongst the participants. Various innovative learning methods are applied such as design thinking, concept maps, brain walking and peer learning. The summer school will also provide training in project acquisition and management, will help participants to develop preliminary project ideas by taking a hands-off approach and support them by providing hints on how to best respond to upcoming calls of various programmes (e.g. IPA/EU-funded calls) with collaborative research projects.

Please find further information on the DRAFT programme here. For applying for the summer school please click here. The registration fee is € 150. Accommodation, training materials and travel costs up to € 400.- are borne by the organiser. Selected participants have to cover only other costs related to their stay in Vienna (visa fees, insurance, food, etc).

If you have any questions, feel free to contact directly the European Centre for Social Welfare Policy and Research  (eespn@euro.centre.org).

Deadline: 7 April 2017