Progress Programme

Call for Proposals in the framework of the Progress Programme

The Call for Proposals VP/2011/009 for Social Experimentation was published in the framework of the Progress Programme 2011. Activities should start between 01/03/2012 and 01/06/2012 for a maximum duration of 24 months and a minimum duration of 18 months.

The overall objective of the ProgressPprogramme is to strengthen the EU\'s contribution in support of Member States\' commitments and efforts to create more and better jobs and to build a more cohesive society, by providing financial support for the attainment of the European Union’s aims in employment, social affairs and equal opportunities.

The priorities of the current Progress Programme call for proposal is to offer countries embarking on welfare reforms financial support to experiment the envisaged policy changes and reforms before implementing them, if successful, on a wide scale. The present Progress call focuses on the methodological and governance aspects of the project in the different phases of policy reforms. In this context, particular attention should be given to the design and evaluation of the projects and on mutual learning from the experimentations.

The target groups for this Progress Programme call of proposal are Policy-makers at national, regional or local levels. However, social experimentations cannot be conducted without the involvement of other stakeholders such as public authorities, civil society organisations, private business enterprises, scientists and practitioners in the design, the implementation and the evaluation of the project.

The eligible applicants within this call for proposal of the Progress Programme are:
- Stakeholders from all Progress participating countries, including the EFTA countries, the candidate countries and the pre-candidate countries.
- Public authorities, state/semi-state agencies at central, regional or local level of the Progress participating countries.
- Properly constituted and registered organisations (legal person)
They should be established in one of the Progress Programme participating countries with an established administrative and financial management structure.

The actions that can be funded within this Progress Programme call for proposal have to contribute to developing and testing socially innovative approaches to policy priorities in the context of the Europe 2020 Strategy and the Open Method of Coordination on social protection and social inclusion. They should focus on either of the following selected themes, keeping in mind in all cases the gender dimension of the issue:
- Social inclusion of vulnerable groups, such as Roma people, migrants and their descendants, homeless and young people.
- Quality of childcare services: this has great impacts on child well-being, but also on gender equality, poverty in jobless households, employment rates, birth rates and on long term sustainable development by supporting the development of human potential.
- Active and healthy ageing: this depends on various factors, such as life habits, working conditions or urban policies and represents a major condition in order to extend working lives and to reduce social protection expenditures.
- Transition from education to work for the youth as only a multidimensional policy approach combining actions on the education framework, the labor market, families can be successful.

The total budget available for the co-financing of this Progress Programme call for proposal is estimated at EUR 3 500 000. Community financial aid granted will not exceed 80% of the total eligible costs of the action.

The Deadline for submission of applications in the framework of this Progress Programme call for proposal is 15 of December 2011

Further information on the current Call for Proposals of the Progress Programme is available at the following Internet address: http://ec.europa.eu/social/main.jsp?catId=630&langId=en.