New programme seeks to respond to diverse social, employment and work-related challenges facing EU policymakers

(Dublin, Ireland): Eurofound has launched its new work programme for 2017 to 2020. This document sets out the activities the Agency plans to undertake in the next four years to support European decision-makers in formulating effective policies for the improvement of quality of life and work in a fair and competitive Europe during this challenging period.

The new multiannual programme commences at a time when the EU looks back at a decade of economic and political turmoil. A large part of Europe has experienced high levels of unemployment, especially among young people, growing economic insecurity, and increasing poverty and exclusion. While slow growth returned to most Member States in 2015, and employment levels recovered in many, the recovery is fragile and significant divides persist both within and between Member States. These tensions affect European integration. It is important therefore that in the coming period progress is made in solving the economic challenges Europe continues to face: increasing competitiveness; ensuring sustainable, job-rich growth; achieving more equal and inclusive societies.

In response, Eurofound has chosen six strategic areas of intervention in which to carry out activities aimed at providing the knowledge to achieve upward convergence of living and working conditions in the European Union.

• Working conditions and sustainable work
• Industrial relations
• Labour market change
• Quality of life and public services
• The digital age: Opportunities and challenges for work and employment
• Monitoring convergence in the European Union

Through the framework of these six areas – including both established areas of expertise and new and innovative dimensions - Eurofound aims to examine how living and working conditions can be improved through public policies and legislation, through the intervention of the social partners, and through practices at workplace level.

Eurofound Director Juan Menéndez-Valdés noted that the programming document ‘will guide Eurofound’s work and shape its contribution during this period in developing scientifically sound, unbiased, timely and relevant knowledge to support policymakers in the EU institutions, social partners and national governments’.

Download Eurofound’s new four-year work programme here: http://bit.ly/Programme2017-2020