Periodic Reporting for period 2 - DiCE (Differentiation: Clustering Excellence)
Reporting period: 2021-07-01 to 2022-12-31
Differentiation has gained a greater prominence on the European agenda in the last decade, especially after Brexit. In this context, new questions emerge as to whether differentiation can be sustainable and acceptable or rather lead to dominance and, ultimately, disintegration. Given the wealth of knowledge co-created by the three successful Horizon 2020 projects on differentiation (EU3D, EU IDEA, InDivEU), ‘Differentiation: Clustering Excellence’ (DiCE)’s overarching objective is not only to bring the three ‘sister projects’ together but to exploit their complementarities and take a range of measures designed to maximize impact, ensuring that DiCE’s results are greater than the sum of its individual parts.
The main results of the work of DiCE in the second reporting period have been to consolidate the open and inclusive network of scholarly expertise on differentiation; to complete the undertaking of a comprehensive stock-taking and synthesis of research on differentiation, both within and beyond the three sister projects, making it available for all; to develop future scenarios on differentiation and test them with policy-makers in the second flagship event; to create a sustainable platform for continuation of the project after the conclusion of its funding period; and finally, to continuously exploit the outcome of the three sister projects and continue the dissemination of results to amplify their impact.
DiCE’s maximization of the combined effort of the three sister projects – synthesized, translated into policy-relevant advice and made readily accessible to academics and policy-makers alike at multiple levels of governance and society – has significantly enhanced the field of scientific research and scholarly knowledge of Differentiation beyond the preexisting state of the art. Such contribution, in turn, reverberates on the wider societal impact of a better prepared European Union, and its interested citizens and stakeholders, for future scenarios, both in respect to the existing challenges at the time of the start of the project (Brexit) as well as new, unexpected ones (the Russian war on Ukraine).