The project SkiLMeeT (Skills for labour markets in the digital and green transition) has three main objectives: 1) generate data and indicators which quantify the extent of labour and skills shortages and mismatch in Europe; 2) explore the drivers of these gaps and shortages, with a focus on the digital and green transitions; 3) analyse and identify pathways to reduce skill gaps and shortages. SkiLMeeT advances the knowledge how the work programme’s main goals can be achieved: to equip the workforce with the demanded skills, to encourage successfully the necessary reskilling and upskilling of the workforce and ultimately to realise the full potential of the digital and green transitions for Europe as a whole. To achieve these aims, SkiLMeeT builds on an inter- and transdisciplinary approach bringing together quantitative and qualitative methods. The combination of in-depth case studies and broad analyses of European economies using a rich variety of data sources ranging from survey and administrative data to big data provides highly valuable complementary insights into the nature of shortages, their drivers and pathways out. The indicators created are transparent and easily accessible. The analyses of drivers and pathways are conducted both for all European countries and for particularly relevant example countries. To validate the quantitative analyses, to explore mechanisms and to identify particularly promising pathways, we engage in extensive consultations and set up feedback loops with the research community, especially with relevant international and national research initiatives, and with stakeholders. The stakeholder consultations help to develop concrete policy proposals aimed at a thriving economy and an inclusive society. To maximise SkilMeeT’s impact, we disseminate the project’s indicators and insights, as well as concrete policy proposals to policymakers, stakeholders and the public.

WinWin4Worklife envisions to enable healthy, inclusive and sustainable remote working arrangements (RWA) in Europe by combining employer and employee perspectives into a single framework. The project has five key objectives and outcomes: 1) To gain an interdisciplinary understanding of how the private and work spheres interact when working remotely; 2) To assess which living and working conditions ensure a healthy work-life balance in RWA for both men and women living in urban, rural, and cross-border areas; 3) To develop forecasting models of the impacts of different scenarios of RWA on mobility, land use, air quality, noise, and health; 4) To enhance knowledge on the role of culture, regional context and welfare systems in the uptake of RWA by employees and employers; and 5) To develop a comprehensive set of evidence-based spatial policies for a sustainable implementation of RWA, based on co-creation processes with stakeholders and citizens. To do so, WinWin4WorkLife will collect novel and comprehensive data in 5 European countries (DE, FI, LU, PT, SK), selected to represent different welfare systems, housing and labour markets, and cultural norms towards remote work. Data collection consists of an employer survey focused on organizational support for RWA, impacts on skills retention and productivity, and intentions to relocate; and an employee survey complemented by interviews and a time use app covering employee circumstances, gendered RWA experiences, impacts on work-life balance and mental health, as well as residential or job relocation, and social security and taxation issues. This quantitative and qualitative data will feed custom-made spatial forecasting models to assess wider urban/rural regeneration, environmental and health impacts. Close and continuous engagement with planning, policy, business, and institutional stakeholders will ensure concrete and context-sensitive policy actions and measures for the sustainable uptake of RWA in Europe.

The Growing Up in Digital Europe Preparatory Phase (GUIDEPREP) project further develops the research infrastructure (RI) necessary to implement the GUIDE birth cohort study. This preparatory work will take place across 2022 to 2025 to ready the RI for the full-scale piloting of the GUIDE in 2026 and the first full wave of data collection in 2027. Once operational, GUIDE will collect data about individual children growing up in Europe until those children are aged 24-years in approximately 2053. GUIDE will be Europe’s first comparative birth cohort study of children’s and young people’s wellbeing. The aim of the GUIDE study is to track children’s personal wellbeing and development, in combination with key indicators of children’s homes, neighbourhoods, and schools, across Europe. GUIDE will be an accelerated cohort survey including a sample of infants as well as a sample of school age children. Each Member State and Associated Country will provide nationally representative samples that are designed to retain statistical power throughout the lifetime of the study. The harmonized design will create the first internationally comparable, nationally representative, longitudinal study of children and young people in Europe. Currently the GUIDE RI is in its preparatory phase, which involves the establishment of necessary operational procedures and further crystallisation of the study concept and design. To realise the GUIDE full-scale pilot in 2026 and first wave of fieldwork in 2027, the RI needs to develop administratively, technologically, financially, scientifically, and legally. This GUIDEPREP proposal lays out clear aims for these developments in an interlocking system of activities that are shared across consortium partners and managed by the GUIDE leadership team.

Technological transformations, globalisation and demographic changes are the three key mega-trends posing socio-economic challenges and opportunities for the EU. UNTANGLED aims to fill knowledge gaps about these trends by pursuing three main goals: (1) to provide detailed analyses at the macro-, regional-, sectoral-, and micro-level concerning the effects of these trends on labour market outcomes and inequality, and their winners and losers; (2) to develop comprehensive, model-based scenarios of the impacts of these trends in the next decades, overall and for various subpopulations, sectors and regions; (3) to develop policy recommendations fostering shared prosperity. UNTANGLED contributes to the work programme’s goal of promoting inclusive and evidence-based policy and informed public debates. In measuring effects, we disentangle the joint impacts of the trends on the changing demand of skills, employability, wage and income inequality, and mobility and migration patterns. We pay attention to effects by gender, age, skill level, and firm type. We use an interdisciplinary approach that combines quantitative and qualitative methods and adopts a cross-country perspective, covering the entire EU and accounting for developments in other continents. This helps to project the impact of shocks on global value chains. Our scenarios are firmly based on analytical results and created with two complementary models to provide robust results at the country-, sector- and regional-level. To develop assumptions and ensure relevance of scenarios, we engage in extensive consultations and set up feedback loops with stakeholders, which complement and validate the economic and institutional analyses. These stakeholder consultations help to develop concrete policy proposals aimed at shared prosperity. We deliver research papers and policy briefs. To maximise UNTANGLED’s impact, we disseminate the lessons learned and policy proposals to policy-makers, stakeholders and the public.