Consortium

FGB - Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini (Consortium Leader)

With over thirty years of experience, the Fondazione Giacomo Brodolini (FGB) has developed broad capacities in research and services at EU level with the aim of exploring and discussing the most topical and pressing issues concerning employment, gender, labour protection and social security, adopting a rigorous scientific methodologies and an interdisciplinary approach.

Studies, evaluation and multi country research in the field of gender equality

FGB has extensive expertise in managing and coordinating two EU-level academic expert networks during the period 2007-2011:

• the European Commission’s employment and gender equality network - EGGE; 
• the Gender equality, social inclusion, health and long-term care network - EGGSI.

This experience has brought FGB to the forefront of European debates and of academic and applied research in the fields of gender equality and social policies.

FGB has been awarded to the European Parliament’s multiple framework research contract for the provision of external expertise on issues related to women's rights. Within the Framework Contract, it has undertaken the second ex-ante evaluation of the European Institute for Gender Equality (EIGE), focussing on the EIGE's specific objectives and operations.

Since 2003, FGB has taken part as a promoter, scientific coordinator, or partner in 14 EC-funded projects on gender equality, involving public and private partners in most of the EU countries. In 2010 it began publishing the online magazine www.ingenere.it, the first of its kind in Italy, dealing with gender equality issues from an economic and sociological perspective.

Employment and social policy issues

FGB is at the forefront of applied research in the field of employment and social policy. In addition to a wide range of studies and research at the EU level, FGB publishes two specialised journals in the field of labour economics and social policy: «Economia & Lavoro», a quarterly journal on economic and social policy, in Italian; and «Labour», a review of labour and industrial relations published in English by Blackwell.

International networks and partners

FGB can rely on the collaboration and expertise of an extensive network of nearly 230 researchers. Besides the EGGE and EGGSI networks, since 2000 FGB has been the Italian member of the SYSDEM network of the European Employment Observatory (EEO). Furthermore FGB actively cooperates with the European Trade Union Institute (ETUI), the International Working Party on Labour Market Segmentation (IWPLMS) and is part of the European Labour Network for Economic Policy (ELNEP).

IRS - Istituto per la Ricerca Sociale

IRS, a leading research institute in Italy since 1973, is a totally independent non-profit organisation, with over 80 members. IRS has a longstanding reputation on socio-economic research and evaluative research and operates in different policy areas: Social Policies, Labour market, Training and Gender Equality policies, Administrative Policies, Urban policies. The wide spectrum of expertise of its researchers and participation to European networks of experts allows IRS to develop a multi-disciplinary approach in its research and evaluation activities and to rely on national and international competences and experiences in order to collect and compare information/data for all 28 Member States, EEA/EFTA and candidate Countries in many relevant academic disciplines.

IRS is currently involved in a number of EU-funded projects and networks and has conducted many studies on different EU policy issues for the European Commission and Parliament, and for many other European Institutions and international organisations. Among the activities carried out in recent years in fields related to gender equality at the European level, are the following: “Study of  the cost of childcare” (European Parliament, 2006); Gender Mainstreaming in the use of Structural Funds, Policy Department Structural and Cohesion Policies, for the European Parliament, 2007; “Women Living Alone: evaluation of their specific difficulties” (European Parliament, 2008); “Ex post evaluation of the 2000-2006 ESF support to the Open Method of Coordination in Social Protection and Social Inclusion” (DG-EMPL 2009); “Effectiveness of Cohesion Policy: Gender Equality and Demographic Change. Ex-post evaluation of cohesion policy programmes 2000-2006 co-financed by the European Fund for Regional Development (Ob. 1 and 2) – Work package 7”, for the European Commission - DG REGIO, 2009; Study on implementation methods of work with the Beijing indicators in the European Union, for EIGE – European Institute for Gender Equality, 2010-2011. In the 2008-2011 period IRS has coordinated with FGB the EGGSI network of 33 experts in Gender equality, social inclusion, health, a long-term care for DG Justice. Within this activity, IRS has produced the following thematic reports: “Ethnic minority and Roma women in Europe: A case for gender equality?”,2008; “Access to Health and Long-term Care? Equal for women and men?”, 2009; “Position Paper on Monitoring Progress towards Gender Equality. A close look at the European Strategy for Social Protection and Social Inclusion and its Gender Equality Challenges after 2010”, 2010; “Violence Against Women and The Role of Gender Equality, Social Inclusion and Health Strategies”, 2010; The socio-economic impact of pension systems on the respective situations of women and men and the effects of recent trends in pension reforms”,2011;

At the national level, IRS has been assisting the Equal Opportunities Department of the Presidenza del Consiglio in Rome, Italy since 2002.