Since 2014, the European Social Policy Network (ESPN) has been supporting the European Commission with independent information, analysis and expertise on social policies to foster the development of evidence-based social policy initiatives at European level. In particular, the ESPN supports the Commission in monitoring progress towards the EU’s social protection and social inclusion objectives as set out in the Europe 2020 Strategy, the European Pillar of Social Rights and the European Semester. The ESPN2 currently covers 35 countries: the 28 EU countries as well as seven candidate and potential candidate countries: Albania, Bosnia and Herzegovina, FYR of Macedonia, Kosovo, Montenegro, Serbia and Turkey. It also provides ad hoc social policy analysis for an additional set of countries inside and outside Europe. Finally, the ESPN acts as the secretariat to MISSOC (Mutual Information Systems on Social Protection). At the heart of the ESPN are 35 Country Teams of independent experts on social policies who are supported and coordinated by a central team of international experts. The ESPN is managed jointly by the LISER Research Institute (lead partner, based in Luxembourg), the independent research company APPLICA (Belgium) and the OSE (Social Protection Leader).
The contract is a one-year contract which can be renewed up to three times.
OSE researchers involved: Slavina Spasova (lead researcher), Rita Baeten, Stéphanie Coster, Dalila Ghailani, Ramón Peña-Casas and Bart Vanhercke
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