From the 9th to 11th of October, we held our second General Meeting in Barcelona, Spain. Three intense days strengthening our collaboration and sharing our latest advances on all WPs, as well as aligning the project’s objectives, priorities and next steps to further contribute to a resilient Europe and sustainable welfare systems in the 21st century reality. During the meeting, the WPs leaders presented the progress achieved to date and discussed the research plans and methodology for the project’s next year. From technical meetings to a co-creation workshop— we covered key project topics, including updates, key developments and following actions.
We also held a specific stakeholder event in which an expert panel presented different welfare policies provisions and its impact through the different stages of the life-course.
The welcome and introduction was given by Francesc Trillas, Secretari d’Afers Econòmics i Fons Europeus de la Generalitat de Catalunya and Prof. Ció Patxot, Project Coordinator (Universitat de Barcelona).
The expert panel was chaired by Alícia Adserà from Princeton University, member of our Scientific Advisory Board. We’d like to thank her for wonderful role as moderator and valuable insights during the session.
The panel consisted of Libertad González (Universitat Pompeu Fabra) who presented her research on “The State and the Family: (Desired and Undesired) Causal Effects of Family Policies”; Andreu Arenas (Institut Català d’Avaluació de Polítiques Públiques, ivàlua) who explored the “Education Policy from a lifecyle perspective”; and Judit Vall Castellò (Universitat de Barcelona) that provided her research outcomes on the “Lifetime impact of labour market conditions. The role of temporary contracts”. We’d like to thank them all for their meaningful contributions.
For the session, we invited stakeholders and policy makers from the local and regional government, foundation, hospitals and civil organisations to participate in an interactive session in small groups to facilitate discussion on social policies concerning early childhood, work-life balance and family policies, pensions or retirement. Feedback gathered during the session will influence the shape of an EU policy brief with a set of recommended actions to include the lifecycle perspective in welfare policies.