Project description
A closer look at how COVID-19 is reshaping our democracies
The COVID-19 pandemic came at the end of a decade of social, economic, and political crises for Europe. It stalled economic recovery and affected democratic politics and governance throughout the continent, calling for institutional transformation at various levels. The EU-funded REGROUP project will provide the EU with actionable advice on how to rebuild post-pandemic governance and public policies in an effective and democratic way. It will do so based on an analysis of the socio-political consequences of the pandemic, and an empirically-informed normative evaluation of it. Bringing together a consortium of 14 institutions, the project aims to achieve a high degree of policy, societal, and scientific impact.
Objective
Culminating more than a decade of crisis in Europe, the Covid-19 pandemic has opened an unprecedented window of opportunity for institutional and policy change, not only at the “reactive” level of emergency responses, but also to tackle more broadly the many socio-political challenges caused or exacerbated by Covid-19. Building on this premise, REGROUP (Rebuilding governance and resilience out of the pandemic) aims to: 1) provide the European Union with a body of actionable advice on how to rebuild post-pandemic governance and public policies in an effective and democratic way; anchored to 2) a map of the socio-political dynamics and consequences of Covid-19; and 3) an empirically-informed normative evaluation of the pandemic. REGROUP pursues this threefold objective via a multi-level (national, supranational, international) and multi-sphere (political, societal, ideational, digital) research approach, and guided by three overarching analytical themes: “reordering”; “risk”; “resilience”. We operate in nine collaborative work packages—grouped in three blocks: “diagnosis”, “evaluation”, and “prescription”—bringing together expertise and methods from a range of social sciences and humanities. Doing so, we advance the state of the art conceptually, theoretically, and methodologically. REGROUP is conducted by a consortium of 13 internationally renowned institutions, committed to scholarly excellence, inclusiveness, and open science. The project is designed to achieve a high degree of policy, societal, and scientific impact, which it will achieve via a multi-pronged dissemination and communication strategy. This includes links to some of the EU’s main debates and events, such as the Health Union, the Green Deal, the Digital Decade, the Economic Governance Review, the Conference on the Future of Europe, and the 2024 European Parliament elections.
Fields of science
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Programme(s)
Funding Scheme
HORIZON-RIA - HORIZON Research and Innovation ActionsCoordinator
9712CP Groningen
Netherlands