EXPRESS² – “Crafting a new EU social contract together” is a multinational research led by our colleague Juan Antonio Mayoral Díaz-Asensio at IC3JM in Spain and funded through a Horizon Europe research grant by the European Commission (HORIZON, 2024–2027).
The project aims to develop a more democratic, inclusive, and sustainable social contract for the European Union. It seeks to address challenges such as inequality, populism, climate change, digitalization, and mistrust in institutions by proposing a new, explicit agreement between EU citizens and institutions.
The research focuses on identifying and analyzing disruptive elements that affect the social contract, such as insecurity, populism, climate change, mistrust in institutions, gender discrimination, digitalization, and pandemics. By understanding these stressors, the project aims to propose concrete measures to strengthen the social contract and provide relevant information to protect it from actual and potential disruptions. EXPRESS² also emphasizes citizen engagement and deliberation, promoting active involvement and dialogue among Europe’s inhabitants to ensure that different perspectives shape the social contract. The project will provide actionable recommendations to enhance and evolve the social contract over time.
To achieve this, EXPRESS² employs a multidisciplinary approach, combining insights from political science, law, philosophy, and sociology. The consortium is coordinated by Universitat Autònoma de Barcelona (Spain) and includes the following partners:
- University of Copenhagen (Denmark)
- Scuola Superiore Sant’Anna (Italy)
- Molde University College (Norway)
- Sabancı University (Turkey)
- Central European University (Hungary)
- European Movement International (Belgium)
- Dublin City University (Ireland)
- Universidad Carlos III de Madrid (Spain)
- University of Essex (United Kingdom)
Duration: 2024 – 2027
Funding: Horizon Europe (Grant Agreement No. 101132426)
Website: express2project.eu
