·       Inequalities and social stratification (income, wealth, education, health, territory, digital access), and the policies that reduce them.

·       Social inclusion and equal opportunities in a multicultural setting

·       The role of democracy, institutions, politics, citizenship and information

·       Non-discrimination and equal treatment, including the interplay of racism, gender inequality, disability exclusion, ageism, and intersecting vulnerabilities.

·       Social protection and access to essential services (housing, childcare, education, healthcare, decent work).

·       Democratic governance and civic participation, including trust, social cohesion, polarisation, and the role of institutions in enabling inclusion.

·       Just transitions (green/digital) and their distributive effects: who benefits, who bears costs, and what policy designs prevent new forms of exclusion.

We address these issues with a particular emphasis on rural and mountain areas.

·       Socio-economic transformation with inclusion and growth, and

·       Democratic values, fundamental rights, and participation.

This has been explicit in Horizon Europe, Cluster 2: Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society, which frames research priorities around democracy, rights, and socio-economic transformations contributing to inclusion. (Research and innovation) A complementary cornerstone is the European Pillar of Social Rights and its Action Plan, which sets out principles and concrete initiatives for fair labour markets, social protection, and inclusion, along with EU-level targets looking to 2030. (Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion)

UN Sustainable Development Goals https://sdgs.un.org/goals

Leaving no one behind: equality and non-Discrimination at the Hearth of sustainable Development https://unsceb.org/sites/default/files/imported_files/CEB%20equality%20framework-A4-web-rev3.pdf

UNESCO social inclusion factsheet https://www.unesco.org/en/socialinclusion-factsheet

EU Policies for combatting discrimination. Tackling discrimination, gender equality and equal pay rules, actions on Roma integration and LGBTI equality, statistics on inequality, age discrimination, funding for anti-discrimination programmes, how religious organisations help fight discrimination. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/combatting-discrimination_en

European Pillar of Social Rights – Action Plan The Action Plan sets out concrete initiatives to turn the European Pillar of Social Rights into reality. It proposes headline targets for the EU by 2030.. https://employment-social-affairs.ec.europa.eu/policies-and-activities/european-pillar-social-rights-building-fairer-and-more-inclusive-european-union/european-pillar-social-rights-action-plan_en

Strategy for the Rights of Persons with Disabilities 2021–2030 Close to 89 million people in the EU have some form of disability. As party of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, the EU is committed to ensure persons with can fully participate in society on an equal basis with others. https://commission.europa.eu/strategy-and-policy/policies/justice-and-fundamental-rights/disability_en

Horizon Europe Work Programme 2025 (Cluster 2) – relevant examples for ongoing calls and project positioning. https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/docs/2021-2027/horizon/wp-call/2025/wp-5-culture-creativity-and-inclusive-society_horizon-2025_en.pdf

Cluster 2 (Commission page) + implementation/funding routes (REA page) – references for visitors and prospective partners. https://research-and-innovation.ec.europa.eu/funding/funding-opportunities/funding-programmes-and-open-calls/horizon-europe/cluster-2-culture-creativity-and-inclusive-society_en

22 & 23 May 2025. Pathways to inclusive societies : Exploring the role of democracy, institutions, politics, citizenship and information  UNITBV

SHE-MAP directly contributes to the development of inclusive societies by examining how media representation shapes social inclusion, inequality, and participation. Advertising is a powerful cultural mechanism that influences norms, identity, and belonging. When minority women are stereotyped, marginalized, or rendered invisible, these patterns reinforce structural inequalities and limit civic participation. By mapping historical and contemporary representations of Roma, Muslim, migrant, and socio-economically disadvantaged women across European advertising, the project exposes mechanisms of symbolic exclusion and unequal visibility. Through AI-assisted analysis combined with feminist and participatory methods, SHE-MAP promotes diversity-aware knowledge production and social innovation in media research. Participatory workshops actively involve women from underrepresented communities as co-interpreters of media content, strengthening voice, agency, and democratic participation in knowledge creation. The project thus moves beyond observation toward inclusive co-creation. Its outputs, bias typologies, educational resources, and policy recommendations, support more equitable communication practices, inclusive education, and responsible governance in the media and advertising sectors. By fostering visual literacy, ethical awareness, and diversity-sensitive storytelling, SHE-MAP contributes to building societies where representation reflects plurality, supports social cohesion, and reduces inequalities in public discourse and professional communication.

AA@25 revisits the concept of Active Ageing twenty-five years after the World Health Organization’s policy framework (2002), asking how far its principles have been implemented and whether they still provide an effective guide for inclusive policies in today’s increasingly multicultural European societies. Working through an interdisciplinary and inter-university collaboration across Spain, Italy, Portugal and Romania (UNITA Alliance), the project critically reassesses the theoretical assumptions of Active Ageing, its translation into national policy frameworks, and its concrete impact on social inclusion. The project combines (1) a comparative mapping of how the Active Ageing framework has been adopted at national level, with particular attention to the three pillars—health, participation and security; (2) the identification and analysis of good practices aimed at inclusion in later life, integrating gender, intercultural, intergenerational and life-course perspectives; (3) the design of an interactive monitoring tool to visualise policy adoption and outcomes; and (4) the formulation of forward-looking recommendations that address ‘new’ challenges increasingly linked to ageing policies, such as digital inclusion, migration, lifelong learning and climate adaptation. Activities are organised around transnational meetings combining project coordination, thematic seminars and stakeholder networking sessions. Dissemination includes policy-oriented outputs, an indexed journal article and a Special Issue of Acciones e Investigaciones Sociales (AIS), aimed at consolidating academic debate and supporting evidence-informed, socially inclusive approaches to ageing.

The study proposes a Bi-dimensional Social Responsibility (B-SR) model for the public sector, integrating diversity inclusion and organizational well-being. The goal is to transcend the traditional view and establish a dual-purpose SR model capable of generating value both within and outside organizational institutions. In a context where the primary mission is citizen service, integrating SR into Performance Management (PM) and Management Control (MC) systems becomes crucial. This synergy allows for the evolution towards approaches to co-creating public value, where administrative efficiency is combined with employee well-being. The project places particular emphasis on disability, understood as the interaction between the individual and contextual factors. To achieve holistic inclusion, it aims to transcend the limits of simple "reasonable accommodation" in favor of the principles of integral humanism and social ergonomics. This approach transforms diversity management from a formal obligation into a strategic lever for innovation in Public Administration, ensuring a positive impact on the entire community.

This interdisciplinary research project investigates practices of commoning in rural and mountainous regions, examining how communities build resilience and resistance in response to political, environmental, economic, and social crises. Commoning is understood as the collective creation and governance of shared resources, spaces, and decision-making structures. It includes initiatives such as reclaiming land and local resources, developing cooperative economic models, and fostering grassroots alliances that bring together diverse actors, including migrants, environmental groups, and long-standing residents. Field research forms the core of the project and is being carried out in Ireland, France, Romania, Italy, Portugal, and Spain. Across these contexts, researchers work directly with rural and mountain communities to document lived experiences of crisis and collective self-organisation. These case studies examine how local actors respond to depopulation, ecological degradation, austerity, land dispossession, and social fragmentation through innovative forms of solidarity and shared governance. Crucially, the project adopts a citizen science approach, positioning civil society organisations, grassroots movements, and community groups as research partners rather than objects of study. Communities actively contribute to defining research questions, producing knowledge, and sharing practices across national contexts. This collaborative model strengthens dialogue between academics, local citizens, and institutional actors. By combining historical and contemporary perspectives and drawing comparative insights from Europe, the United States, and Latin America, the project highlights both the inclusive potential and internal tensions of commoning initiatives. Ultimately, it seeks to foster transnational exchange among rural and mountain communities, supporting more inclusive and creative collective responses to crisis.

Housing4Youth is a transnational research-action project addressing one of Europe’s most pressing inclusion challenges: access to affordable, safe and non-discriminatory housing for international university students and young mobile workers. Focusing on small and mid-sized university cities, Turin (Italy), Guarda (Portugal) and Zaragoza (Spain), the project investigates how the expansion of short-term tourist rentals reduces long-term housing availability, raises rents, worsens housing quality, and increases social exclusion. The project combines evidence-based analysis with participatory solutions. First, it will establish a transnational Short-term Rental Observatory by collecting publicly available listing data and matching it with local indicators (housing stock, student enrolment, neighbourhood profiles) to map hotspots where tourist demand collides with student needs. Second, the project will capture lived experiences through interviews with international students, landlords/intermediaries and city officials/activists, with particular attention to structural barriers such as excessive guarantees, precarious conditions, and discriminatory practices. Housing4Youth then translates findings into democratic practice through civic storytelling and codesign. Story-circle workshops will help participants transform evidence into digital narratives (videos, podcasts, photo-essays) published on a multilingual platform. A design-thinking process will turn insights into transferable policy prototypes (e.g., fair-rent charters, deposit-guarantee schemes, inclusive landlord labels), to be discussed with municipal decision-makers. Key outputs include a comparative report, a multilingual archive of youth housing stories, and a practical toolkit for inclusive housing governance, aligned with the SDGs and European priorities for sustainable, people-centred urban futures.

AA@25 revisits the concept of Active Ageing twenty-five years after the World Health Organization’s policy framework (2002), asking how far its principles have been implemented and whether they still provide an effective guide for inclusive policies in today’s increasingly multicultural European societies. Working through an interdisciplinary and inter-university collaboration across Spain, Italy, Portugal and Romania (UNITA Alliance), the project critically reassesses the theoretical assumptions of Active Ageing, its translation into national policy frameworks, and its concrete impact on social inclusion. The project combines (1) a comparative mapping of how the Active Ageing framework has been adopted at national level, with particular attention to the three pillars—health, participation and security; (2) the identification and analysis of good practices aimed at inclusion in later life, integrating gender, intercultural, intergenerational and life-course perspectives; (3) the design of an interactive monitoring tool to visualise policy adoption and outcomes; and (4) the formulation of forward-looking recommendations that address ‘new’ challenges increasingly linked to ageing policies, such as digital inclusion, migration, lifelong learning and climate adaptation. Activities are organised around transnational meetings combining project coordination, thematic seminars and stakeholder networking sessions. Dissemination includes policy-oriented outputs, an indexed journal article and a Special Issue of Acciones e Investigaciones Sociales (AIS), aimed at consolidating academic debate and supporting evidence-informed, socially inclusive approaches to ageing.

The study proposes a Bi-dimensional Social Responsibility (B-SR) model for the public sector, integrating diversity inclusion and organizational well-being. The goal is to transcend the traditional view and establish a dual-purpose SR model capable of generating value both within and outside organizational institutions. In a context where the primary mission is citizen service, integrating SR into Performance Management (PM) and Management Control (MC) systems becomes crucial. This synergy allows for the evolution towards approaches to co-creating public value, where administrative efficiency is combined with employee well-being. The project places particular emphasis on disability, understood as the interaction between the individual and contextual factors. To achieve holistic inclusion, it aims to transcend the limits of simple "reasonable accommodation" in favor of the principles of integral humanism and social ergonomics. This approach transforms diversity management from a formal obligation into a strategic lever for innovation in Public Administration, ensuring a positive impact on the entire community.

In recent years, several European countries have undertaken significant reforms to align the criminalisation of sexual offences with the principle of consent. This project explores the evolving role and legal construction of consent in defining sexual offences, examining how various European legal systems have integrated, or resisted integrating, this criterion into their legislation and jurisprudence. Consent has become a key legal and symbolic threshold in distinguishing lawful sexual conduct from criminal acts, reflecting broader societal shifts regarding bodily autonomy, gender equality, and victims’ rights. This project emerged from a collaboration among researchers from universities in the UNITA alliance. An international conference in Pau (Oct. 2025) will bring together the core team for indepth discussion on sexual offences in comparative criminal law, as a foundational step toward the development of this research project. By conducting a comparative analysis of countries that have fully incorporated the consent criterion (e.g., Spain), those currently undergoing reform (e.g., France), and others less inclined toward such change (e.g., Italy, Romania), the project highlights the legal, social, and political implications of divergent approaches. It considers how legal definitions of consent interact with reflections from gender studies and transdisciplinary feminist literature, where consent is problematised as a relational, context-dependent construct shaped by power dynamics and social norms, and how they intersect with judicial interpretation and international human rights standards (Istanbul Convention, ECHR). This project contributes to understanding how criminal law, as a democratic institution, contribute shaping inclusive citizenship, particularly in guaranteeing sexual autonomy agency and protection for all. By mapping how legal systems define and enforce consent, the project sheds light on the role of law in building more inclusive European societies.

W(h)OCAREs addresses Gynaecological and Obstetric Violence (GOV) as a barrier to equitable healthcare and well-being for women and gender-diverse individuals. While research has mainly focused on obstetric violence in maternity care, this project broadens the scope to include all aspects of gynaecological services. It aims to develop a comprehensive, legally grounded definition of GOV and to explore how the therapeutic alliance between gynaecological patients and healthcare professionals can be reinforced.

Grounded in the principles of patient-centred medicine, the project adopts an interdisciplinary, bottom-up, and citizen science approach, involving experts in health law, bioethics, sociology, midwifery and psychology. It will engage both civil society—such as patient associations and feminist or LGBTQIA+ collectives—and healthcare professionals, including midwives, gynaecologists,nurses and students. Aligned with UNITA’s focus on inclusive societies, W(h)OCAREs promotes interdisciplinary, transnational collaboration and lays the groundwork for future EU research initiatives to enhance communication, mutual understanding, and inclusion in gynaecological healthcare.

This project aims to investigate, on the one hand, the role that Romanian immigration has played in Spain and Italy over the last two decades. On the other hand, it aims to analyze the return of Romanians in relation to the role played by remittances from both countries. It will also analyze their impact and typology both at the origin and destination country. This is a transdisciplinary project involving three countries and the three UNITA network partners. It will address geographic, mobility, socioeconomic, cultural and political aspects. It also has an applied nature because, in collaboration with partners and organizations, it will contribute to the design of effective policies on reintegration, employment, social services, and the use of returned human capital. All of this, considering the potential of these population flows and their impact on the creation of more inclusive societies both at origin and destination

DESIGN-IN-LAB brings together universities from Italy, Spain and Romania to co-develop a transnational research framework focused on the inclusion of migrant women in diverse labour markets. Building on partners’ experience and local networks, the initiative adopts a comparative, cross-disciplinary and inter-sectional approach to deepen understanding of the barriers and enablers shaping migrant women’s participation in the labour market.

Grounded in legal, sociological and economic perspectives, the project aims to:

- map the intersection of migration status, gender and labour market conditions across the participating countries, based on documental sources, existing datasets, proposed best practices and field interviews with key players;

- analyse existing tools, policies and services aimed at migrant women’s integration in the labour market and in the wider social context;

- identify unmet needs and structural gaps in employment access and retention; and lay the groundwork for the development of field-tested, policy-relevant pilot interventions focused on specific migrant women targets.

The project combines academic research with community/institutional engagement, building up the core of a transnational ecosystem capable of addressing systemic inequalities through both research and social innovation. Each partner will expand their local network by involving NGOs, grassroots organisations, trade unions, public institutions and other actors engaged in migrant inclusion. At the same time, the consortium will seek to grow its international network by identifying new academic/research hubs with a migration background willing to contribute to future proposals.This grant is conceived as a strategic step toward the preparation of a consortium to submit a full-scale proposal under the EU- AMIF programme. In doing so, the project enhances universities’ engagement with society, advancing inclusive research that links knowledge production, policy design, and social change

The ReCo project is based on a notable contemporary phenomenon: the resurgence of the witch in literature, the arts, and through its use in interpretation centers. This enduring figure —deeply embedded in ancient myths and legends— carries an intrinsic ambiguity, oscillating between fascination and repulsion. Long marginalized and persecuted during witch hunts, the witch is today reimagined as a symbol of reconciliation with the environment, social cohesion, and territorial enhancement, even as discrimination and gender inequalities persist.

Recognizing this duality, ReCo will primarily analyze the witch as a source of cohesion and renewed connections with land and nature. To what extent can rehabilitating this figure enable communities to unite around a shared history, reinforce territorial identity, and value ancestral knowledge?

To explore how contemporary society is reappropriating this feminine figure —potentially carrying new, sensitive connections to nature and society— we will examine the deconstruction of stereotypes alongside the creation of emancipatory imaginaries and counter-discourses.

The aim is to uncover a historical truth, removed from myths, legends, and ideological manipulation, informed by recent advances in historiography and enriched through the study of artistic and cultural works that spark new imaginaries, as well through the examination of policies implemented in interpretation centers and their sociological impact on local territories.

The project will investigate resistance to collective archetypes that have long marginalized women associated with otherness, autonomy, and the transmission of traditional wisdom. Simultaneously, it will spotlight the contemporary appreciation of practices that connect people to nature — particularly in the context of ecological crisis. In short, ReCo focuses on how rehabilitating the figure of the witch can serve as a vector for social, cultural, and environmental transformation.

This project examines how young women from minority backgrounds create inclusive narratives and respond to anti-gender and hate discourse on social media across UNITA regions. Using a comparative multiple-case design, we conduct passive digital ethnography over a five-month window (November–March) that captures seasonal peaks (25 November; 8 March). Teams in each country will track ~8 public profiles per country across TikTok, Instagram, YouTube, and X, documenting posts, media, hashtags, and salient comment threads.

Data collection prioritizes official APIs (Meta Content Library, TikTok Research API, YouTube Data API) with historical retrieval if access is delayed. A budget-capped contingency (≤€3000; e.g., Apify, Symanto/MeaningCloud, TrackMyHashtag) ensures feasibility. Analysis combines thematic/symbolic coding (NVivo/Atlas.ti), social network mapping (Gephi), and sentiment/toxicity classification (Perspective API + complementary NLP). Quality is secured through bi-weekly QA, double coding (κ/α thresholds), and multilingual model validation against human-coded samples.

Ethics and law compliance are central, including IRB approvals, GDPR-compliant processing of publicly available content, pseudonymization, and a DPIA in Month 1. DSA Art. 40 vetted-researcher routes will be used if needed. Outputs include a comparative report, an open repository with DOI (CC-BY), and structured feedback reports and sessions with grassroots partners. A prototype framework for a transferable toolkit will be produced as a scalable output for subsequent CERV/Erasmus+/Horizon Europe proposals. The project advances scholarship on intersectional, technofeminist digital activism, delivers actionable insights for UNITA institutions and community actors, and builds capacity for evidence-based, culturally adaptable interventions against online gendered harms.

This project explores the future of the welfare state in Europe in light of two converging challenges: digital transformation and democratic erosion. While the welfare state has been a cornerstone of European social inclusion since the mid-20th century, it now faces structural pressures. On one hand, digitalisation is reshaping labour markets, public services, and democratic participation; on the other, authoritarian governance trends threaten the foundational rule-of-law structures that sustain welfare regimes. The project sets out to (1) develop a focused, one-year research programme addressing these dual challenges and (2) lay the groundwork for a larger European research proposal. It will analyse how digital technologies and authoritarian politics affect welfare governance and legal frameworks across different national contexts, proposing strategies to reinforce democratic resilience and rights-based welfare reforms.

In response to the Call’s objective to “highlight concrete actions to develop collaborative projects between the academic community, socio-economic stakeholders, and local communities”, the present action consists of a one-year project between four UNITA Partners aimed at collaboratively developing a research proposal to be presented to EU calls for grants. To this aim, the project aims to conceptualise and systematise the multiple issues arising from the uneasy relationship between the value of democracy and the European Social Model, thereby addressing economic integration, social cohesion, and social inclusion instruments, to develop a coherent research proposal for competitive calls.

This project’s design is justified by the multifaceted and multidisciplinary features of the topic. Indeed, the distinctive characteristics of democracy as a fundamental value of the European Union and its intersection with social inclusion and economic governance give rise to numerous issues that have been insufficiently researched so far. Furthermore, the broad range of issues underlying the project’s topic warrants different research methodologies, such as legal, political, and historical approaches, whose integration into future research action requires special attention and enhanced dialogue between scholars and interested stakeholders. The project addresses these needs by combining members of different UNITA Partners to collaboratively develop a multidisciplinary proposal for a future research grant on the uneasy intersection between the value of democracy, social cohesion and social inclusion in the European Union.

As the following sections and the attached extended project description clarify, the design of the proposal is based on a simple and logical chain of problems-needs-solutions-maximisation. This concept aligns with the small scale of the proposed project, which is intended to serve as the starting point for future, broader research action.

In an era marked by democratic disruption, social fragmentation, and environmental degradation, it is essential to design educational experiences that reconnect learners with their communities, promote democratic values, cultivate empathy and active citizenship from an interdependent and eco-dependent perspective. Service-learning, rooted in the ethics of care (Noddings, 2012; Kittay, 2015) and critical pedagogy (Freire, 1970), offers an inclusive, dialogical methodology linking academic learning to real societal needs.

This pedagogical approach provides a participatory, reflective, and socially engaged learning experience. It enables learners to address pressing real-world issues (such as exclusion, environmental justice, or historical memory) while developing the civic and democratic competences essential for building inclusive societies (Council of Europe, 2020). While existing research on service-learning often emphasizes student civic engagement and competence development, significantly less attention has been paid to its potential as a restorative and epistemologically inclusive practice (Herzog, 2018; Lupin, 2021), one that fosters the emergence and co-construction of marginalized community narratives and an ecological imagination.

Our project proposes the creation of a transnational UNITA academic and research community focused on service-learning as a research device investigating co-existence and polyphonic storytelling in complex societies. Through embodied narratives from historically silenced groups, the project seeks to promote co-design research via multimodality (photovice and podcast), encouraging students to engage their senses to critically reflect on power, memory, justice, and inclusion, making the participation of silenced voices more authentic. This approach aligns with the goals of UNITA in promoting academic collaboration and civic engagement across Europe

This project aims to lay the foundation for a long-term, interdisciplinary research initiative on technologies of control, with a particular focus on the growing prevalence of (self)tracking practices. By combining expertise from sociology, history, marketing, consumer studies, law, race and gender studies, and STS; the project will develop a critical analytical framework to unpack the political, socio-cultural, and affective dimensions of both historical and contemporary technologies of control.

This explorative phase will follow three research streams: (1) historical technologies of population monitoring (e.g. passports, identity cards, work booklets), (2) self-tracking applications, especially femtech markets (e.g. menstrual, weight, activity tracking), and (3) penal technologies such as electronic monitoring devices. Together, these axes examine how technologies shape subjectivities, reinforce inequalities, and create opportunities for resistance or reappropriation. During the Starting Grant phase, we will co-develop a critical framework, engage students in auto-ethnography of self-tracking practices, and build partnerships across academia, NGOs, civil society, and private stakeholders. A final event will disseminate preliminary findings and serve as a platform to identify partners for future European projects. The long-term vision is to create an International Observatory of Technologies of Control as a transnational hub for research, education, and engagement with civil Society.

DESERT-UNITA addresses health disparities and inequities in rural, mountainous areas of Europe through participatory research and interdisciplinary collaboration. Building on the experience of the DESERT project (Horizon Europe ERA4Health GA No 101095426), this initiative brings together researchers, citizens, and local stakeholders to co-diagnose barriers to healthy diet and physical activity and co-design inclusive, practical solutions. The project focuses on two core objectives: (1) to establish a cross-national, cross-disciplinary ecosystem for identifying and addressing disparities in access to food and exercise programs in rural, mountainous areas, and (2) to develop policy-relevant outputs that guide future research and inform territorial action.

Living Labs and Expert Labs will be established in the partner countries, namely Spain, Portugal, Romania, and Italy, ensuring engagement with communities, local governments, and civil society. Activities will follow a structured Participatory Action Research (PAR) cycle: engage, explore, co-design, and act & reflect. Citizens and stakeholders will be involved throughout as informants, co-creators, and co-authors, helping ensure solutions are relevant, legitimate, and transferable.

Expected results include a consensus report with 40 actionable recommendations, a stakeholder engagement platform, a fundable project blueprint, strengthened institutional collaboration, and increased visibility for rural health equity. Further, DESERT-UNITA will also build capacity among early-career researchers. Through deep integration of community participation and policy relevance, this project contributes to the goals of the UNITA alliance and supports the European Union’s vision for inclusive, territorially grounded research and innovation.

• diet and physical exercise disparities in rural and mountainous European areas, 

through different lenses and through cross-border collaboration. 

4 main activities:

- Expert Lab Session Economics 

- Living Lab Session Economics 

- Joint Activity with the UNITA Inclusive Societies Hub (28 May)

- Preparation and Strategic Planning Drafting the next steps