International projects

  GuestXR  GuestXR: A Machine Learning Agent for Social Harmony in eXtended Reality”. Research project supported by the Horizon 2020 Program.
Dates: 2022 – 2025

The GuestXR project aims to create an immersive online social space through extended reality, where the focus is on the existence of a machine learning agent called “The Guest”, which can facilitate interaction between participants to help them achieve their intended goals.

“The Guest” is able to analyse the individual and social behavior of the participants based on existing theoretical models from the point of view of neuroscience and social psychology. Additionally, thanks to machine learning, “The Guest” learns over time and becomes more effective in facilitating social interaction.

To modulate social interaction, “The Guest” manages to perform different multisensory actions using, for instance, visual or auditory elements to create particular states of mind
and stimulate a relaxed environment when detecting a conflict situation.

“The Guest” is trained to deal with different types of social interactions and is initially tested within situations that may involve conflict, that include participants with hearing impairment
or that involve changing attitudes towards climate change. Finally, there is an open call to include another innovative application for “The Guest” to be tested.

The GuestXR consortium, led by Eurecat through its Audiovisual Technologies Unit and the Consulting Department, is made up of eight organizations from six different countries involving
a multidisciplinary team with expertise on extended reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence, social psychology, neuroscience of emotions, multisensory integration, research ethics and technology transfer.

  HEART   – HEAlthier Cities through Blue-Green Regenerative Technologies: the HEART Approach. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 959234).
Dates: 01.03.2021 – 28.02.2025

European and international cities face crucial global geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. Urban areas are under heavy pressure to enhance policies towards more sustainable and livable environments that support public health (PH) and well-being (WB). Under the HEART project, we aim to alternate the conventional approach to urban planning and revitalization dominantly based on profit criteria with routinized methodologies, towards the integrated nature-based methods and concepts with emphasis on health, societal and environmental aspects through the unique concept of HCPM (Health Centred Planning Methodology). To achieve this, HEART aims at engaging local communities to map the needs and challenges and to express their expectations/preferences so that delivered solutions are planned/created together and finally embraced by the citizens.

The HEART project will implement its novel methodology in three demo sites/areas Athens (Attika region, Greece), Belgrade (Serbia), and Aarhus (Midtjylland region, Denmark).
The consortium of 18 partners will serve with its broad expert knowledge and assist these municipalities in planning and designing participatory processes and also building Nature-Based and Blue-Green Solutions. Moreover, the HEART project will promote interaction and recreation facilities for both mental and physical health, positive emotional experience,
and a sense of healthy environment (cleaner water, air, soil) with advanced support of “circular economy” (recycling of material resources, urban farming), simply “healthy city for happy people”.

The HEART project is coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in cooperation with 18 partners from academia and different fields of expertise: health, urban planning, social studies, technological and innovation-oriented, along with cities/regions and their utility companies (water, green infrastructure, environment).

HEART website https://heartproject.eu/ (hiperlink)

HEART project on FB https://www.facebook.com/heartproject2020/ (hiperlink)

  ISEED  Inclusive Science and European Democracies. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 959234).
Dates: 01.02.2021–31.01.2024

  HumanE-AI-Net   – HumanE AI Network. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 952026).
Dates: 01.09.2020 – 31.08.2023
The EU-funded HumanE-AI-Net project brings together leading European research centres, universities and industrial enterprises into a network of centres of excellence. Leading global artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories will collaborate with key players in areas, such as human-computer interaction, cognitive, social and complexity sciences. The project is looking forward to drive researchers out of their narrowly focused field and connect them with people exploring AI on a much wider scale. The challenge is to develop robust, trustworthy AI systems that can ‘understand’ humans, adapt to complex real-world environments and interact appropriately in complex social settings. HumanE-AI-Net will lay the foundations for designing the principles for a new science that will make AI based on European values and closer to Europeans.

HumanE AI Network | HumanE-AI-Net Project | H2020 | CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)

 EuPOLIS  Integrated NBS-based Urban Planning Methodology for Enhancing the Health and Well-being of Citizens: the euPOLIS Approach
Dates: 2020-2024
EuPOLIS aims to:
(a) replace the traditional perception in which engineering systems are built to protect the environment at significant costs. We aim to deploy natural systems to simultaneously enhance Public Health (PH) and Well-Being (WB), and create resilient urban ecosystems at lower Life-Cycle Costs;
(b) propose a structured approach to activate the hidden possibilities and services of existing Natural and Engineered urban systems, integrate them and define their joint social, cultural and economic effects, as a main vehicle for Ecosystem Business Services and Investment;
(c) regenerate and rehabilitate urban ecosystems, while in parallel addressing key challenges such as low environmental quality, fragmentation and low biodiversity in public spaces,
water-stressed resources, undervalued use of space in deprived areas and therefore we improve urban livability;
(d) improve urban resilience (operational, social and economic) through interventions designed using a set of proper urban planning matrices, which catalyse stakeholder participation,
with a special attention to gender, age and disability perspectives within the process;
(e) create inclusive and accessible urban spaces by systematically implementing gender mainstreaming strategies and novel participatory tools into all phases and processes of project development to ensure that the needs of diverse groups are considered. We aim to stimulate active communities’ participation throughout the process;
(f) to improve citizens’ quality of life providing them with pleasant socializing open areas that stimulate social exchange and inclusivity;
(g) monitor and validate the impact of all interventions to PH and WB of citizens. EuPOLIS solutions will be demonstrated in 4 European cities: Belgrade, Lodz, Piraeus and Gladsaxe.
We have also included some follower cities (Bogota, Palermo, Limassol and Trebinje) in order to replicate and demonstrate the advantages of our innovations via mentoring and coaching.

 NAWA  – Project financed by an academic exchange agency NAWA  pt „Social Space, Fields and Relationality (SSFR) in Contemporary and Historical Social Analysis. Research Network”. Detailed information is available at the link.
Dates: 01.12.2019-30.09.2022

 SOPS4RI Standard Opereating Procedures fo Research Integrity. (Standardowe Procedury Operacyjne na rzecz Rzetelności Badawczej) .Program CSA.
Dates: 2019-2022
The objective of the Standard Operating Procedures for Research Integrity (SOPs4RI) project is to promote
excellent research that aligns with the principles and norms of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, and to counter research misconduct. SOPs4RI will stimulate transformational processes across European research performing organisations (RPOs) and research funding organisations (RFOs) to achieve this goal. SOPs4RI involves a mixed methods, co-creative approach to the development and empirical validation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines to cultivate research integrity and reduce detrimental practices. With rigorous methods, the SOPs and guidelines will be developed by experts and key stakeholders and will be offered as flexible tools for RPOs and RFOs to develop Research Integrity Promotion Plans. Active researchers in the EU and selected OECD countries will be surveyed as part of the validation procedure. Proposals for appropriate incentives and novel sanctions will be developed to promote adoption. The discipline-sensitive SOPs and guidelines will support the production of sound, trust-worthy knowledge, a precondition for tackling the current crisis of truth and trust in science. In turn, a strong research integrity culture and high epistemic quality of research-based knowledge will make a vital contribution to addressing the EU’s current and future challenges. SOPs4RI is fully aligned with the core objectives of the Science with and for Society 2018-20 Work Programme and will draw upon and liaise with other projects in the work programme. To maximise the feasibility and impact
of the project’s outcomes, SOPs4RI engages with key stakeholders in the ERA and beyond in an iterative development, cost benefit assessment, and real world validation
of the toolbox of SOPs and guidelines. A strategic communication plan leveraging the support of key partners will be implemented to maximise short, medium, and longer term impacts.

 HumanE AI Toward AI Systems That Augment and Empower Humans by Understanding Us, our Society and the World Around Us (Horizon2020, Coordination and Support Action)
Dates: 01.03.2019-29.02.2020
Humane AI is a preparatory action consortium, with 35 partners from 17 countries, including four large industrial members, which will define the details of all aspects necessary to implement a full large-scale research project, and mobilize major scientific, industrial, political and public support for the vision. The full large scale research project HumanE AI will develop the scientific foundations and technological breakthroughs needed to shape the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. The goal is to design and deploy AI systems that enhance human capabilities and empower both individuals and society as a whole to develop AI that extends rather than replaces human intelligence. This vision fits very well into the ambitions articulated by the EC in its Communication on AI but cannot be achieved by legislation or political directives alone. Instead it needs fundamentally new solutions to core research problems in AI and human-computer interaction (HCI), especially to help people understand actions recommended or performed by AI systems.
Challenges include: learning complex world models; building effective and fully explainable machine learning systems; adapting AI systems to dynamic, open-ended real-world environments (in particular robots and autonomous systems in general); achieving in-depth understanding of humans and complex social contexts; and enabling self-reflection within AI systems. The focus is on human-centered AI, with a strong emphasis on ethics, values by design, and appropriate consideration of related legal and social issues. The Humane AI project will mobilize a research landscape far beyond the direct project funding and create a unique innovation ecosystem that offers substantial return on investment. It will result in significant disruption across its socio-economic impact areas, including Industry 4.0, health & well-being, mobility, education, policy and finance. It will spearhead the efforts required to help Europe achieve a step-change in AI uptake across the economy.

 SMART (Tender 2017/0090) The mechanisms that shape Social Media and their impact on Society
Consortium: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche CNR (leader), University of Warsaw, PlusValue, Human Ecosystems Relazioni HER and Catchy SRL.
Dates: 2018-2019
Since the appearance of Facebook and Twitter, the impact of social networks on the way people consume, produce and interact with information has grown exponentially. This affected the habits and behaviour of people – and particularly of younger generations – in the way they consume and interact with information. The aim of this proposal is to study the mechanisms that shape social media and their impact on society and try to respond to the key challenges posed by the increasingly broad and diverse community of stakeholders interested in this topic, including researchers, policy makers, regulators, journalists, media companies (traditional and new), industry, civil society organisations and citizens. There are two main objectives of the project: understanding how information spreads on social media and understanding the emergence of narratives and change of behaviour in the age of social media.

 CLIC  Circular models Leveraging Investments in Cultural heritage adaptive reuse.
Research project supported by the Horizon 2020 Program. The CLIC project addresses significant challenges of cultural heritage and landscape adaptive reuse. It progresses the agenda on heritage-led local sustainable development by developing flexible, transparent, integrated and inclusive tools to manage the change of cultural landscape, which are required to leverage the potential of cultural heritage for Europe. The investment gap in cultural heritage and landscape regeneration will be addressed by CLIC through careful evaluation of all costs, of “complex values” and impacts of adaptive reuse, selecting function(s) not only linked to tourism attractiveness, but also for the well-being improvement, providing critical evidence of wealth, jobs, social, cultural, environmental and economic returns on the investment. The overarching goal of the CLIC trans-disciplinary research project is to identify evaluation tools to test, implement, validate and share innovative “circular” financing, business and governance models for systemic adaptive reuse of cultural heritage and landscape, demonstrating the economic, social, environmental convenience, in terms of long lasting economic, cultural and environmental wealth. The project will be launched in December 2017. In ISS the project will be coordinated by dr hab. Anna Domaradzka.

 FAB-MOVE  For a Better Tomorrow: Social Entrepreneurship on the Move
The project is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE). It brings together researchers and practitioners in order to explore the question of how social enterprises can grow and flourish. These objectives will be achieved through a carefully crafted network of 28 academic and non-academic partner organizations co-operating worldwide. At the heart of the project lies the idea to promote international and inter-sector collaboration through research and innovation staff exchanges, and sharing of knowledge and ideas from research to the market. International and intersectoral secondments (1-12 months) of staff members from all partner organizations build the foundation for comparative research on social enterprises, their environments, innovations and challenges in different contexts. FAB-MOVE focuses on the embeddedness of social enterprises and its impact on their evolution. It identifies crucial success factors for a sustainable development of these new and innovative organizations in an internationally comparative perspective. Thoroughly analyzed case studies serve as best practices by highlighting how social enterprises overcome crucial problems and manage to grow in different social areas and various regions around the world. In particular, the cases will shed light on how managers of social enterprises cooperate with stakeholders and how their environment composed of promoting actors and existing (political) structures meet their needs in order to improve social cohesion all over Europe. ISS project team includes: dr hab. Anna Domaradzka (coordinator), prof. Renata Siemienska (expert advisor), dr Ilona Matysiak, mgr Joanna Jasińska and mgr Agata Żbikowska. http://www.uni-muenster.de/IfPol/FAB-MOVE

 COST Action IS1409 Gender and health impacts of policies extending working life in western countries
The goal of this Action is to advance scientific knowledge about the gendered impacts of extended working life on the health and economic well-being of older workers in Europe and to support informed gender-sensitive future policy, explicitly considering the differential needs of women and men. This requires exploring the differential impacts that such policy may have for the health and economic well-being of diverse groups of older workers, using a life course perspective which has been identified as an innovative approach to analysing policy impacts. While life course analysis of pensions has been employed in some COST countries, there is a need to build a research network to develop capacity in life course methods and in gender-aware policy analysis to enable accurate, timely, multi-disciplinary, cross-national analysis of employment policy and practice for older workers. Expected deliverables include: (a) creating a website; (b) depositary database of scientific measures and policy tool-kits; (c) facilitating training schools, Short Term Scientific Missions and conferences; (d) disseminating scientific reports, proceedings, academic publications, policy. Duration: 4.12.2014-27.04.2019. COST STSM Manager: prof. Renata Siemieńska-Żochowska. http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/isch/IS1409

 GendEQU  Gender Equality at the University
The project was funded by the Polish-Norwegian Research Programme. Polish partners included the Department of Economy (coordinator) and Institute for Social Studies UW, the Nordic Institute for studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) was a Norwegian partner. This project was aimed at investigating various forms of gender discrimination in academia. Studies show that despite substantial progress, cultural, economic, social and political barriers to women’s progress in science still persist. In this interdisciplinary project we will apply the gender mainstreaming perspective to several important aspects of this issue. ISS Center of Interdisciplinary Gender Research was responsible for WP1 and WP2. Both involved qualitative data collection  and analysis of available statistical data. In WP1 (GRANTS) we analyzed access to grant opportunities in Poland and Norway based on existing statistical data and qualitative study. For WP2 (PHDS) we conducted a quantitative study with people 5 years after their PhD (based on earlier Norwegian study) and run intertemporal and international (Poland vs. Norway) comparisons of career paths of male and female PhD students. The findings will feed into recommendations for administrators of higher education institutions as well as granting bodies and policy makers. We also aim to raise awareness of researchers, students and the general public as to where unequal treatment of women in academia remain. Wherever applicable, we also wish to transfer best practices from the more gender-aware Norwegian system to Poland. In ISS the project was conducted by prof. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr hab. Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak. http://grape.uw.edu.pl/gendequ/

 ​EFESEIIS  – Enabling the flourishing and evolution of social entrepreneurship for innovative and inclusive societies.
Research project supported by the Seventh Framework Programme and funded by the European Commission. EFESEIIS produced new knowledge aimed at supporting individuals, authorities or organizations that are involved or are willing to involve themselves in the social and solidarity-based economy. It aimed at providing a better understanding of Social Entrepreneurship using thorough analysis of data gathered in 10 European countries. EFESEIIS involved around 1100 stakeholders – from social entrepreneurs, policy makers, financial organizations, and local authorities to individuals – in its research activities. It’s objectives included: 1) constructing an Evolutionary Theory of Social Entrepreneurship; 2) identifying the features of an “Enabling Eco-System for Social Entrepreneurship”; 3)  identifying the “New Generation” of Social Entrepreneurs; and 4) providing advice to stakeholders.  The research allowed to identify the the macro-meso and micro conditions under which Social Enterprises can contribute effectively and efficiently to build an inclusive and innovative society and will lead to a database of good practices. It also led to constructing a theory which explains  differences between countries, taking into account the history and trends of Social Entrepreneurship, the different operational and organisational forms, the role of communities, cultures and tradition, the role of social innovation, the role of the dialogue between the State and Citizens on Social Inclusion and how social entrepreneurship and institutions co-evolved during time. During the entire duration of the project, data from interviews, focus groups and questionnaires will be gathered with the aim of providing targeted advices to stakeholders. In ISS the project was conducted by the team lead by dr hab. Ryszard Praszkier. http://www.fp7-efeseiis.eu

 WILCO  Welfare innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion
Research project supported by the Seventh Framework Programme and funded by the European Commission. WILCO examined, through cross-national comparative research in 20 European cities and 10 countries, how local welfare systems affect social inequalities andhow they favour social cohesion with a special focus on the missing link between innovations at the local level and their successful transfer and implementation to other settings. The results were used, through strong interaction with stakeholders and urban policy recommendations, to link immediately to the needs of practitioners. In doing so, we connected issues of immediate practical relevance with state-of-the-art academic research on how approaches and instruments in local welfare function in practice. In Poland research was conducted in Warsaw and Płock. In ISS the project was conducted by prof. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr hab. Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak. http://www.wilcoproject.eu

 Qlectives  Socially Intelligent Systems for Quality (Społecznie inteligentne systemy dla wytwarzania jakości) 
Using a complexity perspective, QLectives understand, experiment with, design and build cooperative socially intelligent ICT systems composed of self-organising peers, that enable and support emergent “quality collectives” to enhance, for instance, scientific innovation and decentralized media distribution.
We brought together complex system scientists, social scientists and distributed systems engineers to produce new theories and algorithms. Our method was that of empirical experimentation using “living labs” involving thousands of people connected over the internet into collectives. The project generated better theoretical understanding of complex techno-social systems, and how trust and reputation may emerge among a community and be used to enhance quality. The work was organised into four synergistic streams: 1) Theoretical and algorithmic foundations; 2) Algorithm design, simulation and evaluation; 3) Empirical data-sets collection, processing and validation, and 4) Platform and living lab implementation. As a basis we extended an already deployed, mature, P2P technology platform and used two existing user communities: the EconoPhysics Forum and Tribler. Our results were applied to create two examples of how ICT moulds and becomes part of the systems to which it is applied: QScience – a peer-to-peer application for facilitating scientific innovation by supporting scientific communities, rating activities for quality to identify potential collaborators, hot spots and breakthroughs, and disseminating the right information to the right peers promptly; and QMedia – a peer-to-peer application for transforming media distribution by dynamically identifying shared interest communities and recommending quality contents to them using streaming media technology. http://www.qlectives.eu/

 Asysst  Action For The Science Of Complex Systems And Socially Intelligent ICT
ASSYST coordinate research around the call Science of complex systems for socially intelligent ICT (COSI-ICT) in the context of the wider science of complex systems (CS). ASSYST made Complex Systems science and the potential of COSI-ICT better understood by scientific policy makers and funders at national and international levels in Europe. It showcased sucessful applications of the science and informed European policy makers on the global context of European CS and COSI-ICT and funding polices. ASSYST advised policy makers and scientists on the state of the art, and provide high-quality input and advice for funding policies at national level and for the funding agencies of the European Commission including FP7. The project promoted applications of complex systems and COSI-ICT in the public and private sectors, and publicise successful applications and built bridges between complex systems scientists and industry and commerce in Europe, to actively promote civil and commercial applications of the new ICT-driven science. ASSYST achieved its mission through organising many meetings across Europe and around the world with targeted outcomes related to its objectives, through proactive engagement with policymakers, the business community, and the public sector. It provided open educational resources to promote complex systems science and COSI-ICT, and conference support for rapid dissemination of complex systems and COSI-ICT research. It collected information and publish it in easily accessible forms available through an excellent ‘one stop’ CS and COSI-ICT web site. To make the impact of ASSYST sustainable in the long term, it worked closely with the Complex Systems Society which will take over its assets and continue its mission when the project ends. http://cordis.europa.eu/assyst

 ICTeCollective  ICTeCollective – Harnessing ICT-enabled collective social behaviour  (Sterowanie kolektywnymi zachowaniami społecznymi zachodzącymi dzięki technologiom informacyjnym)
ICTeCollective (Harnessing ICT enabled collective social behaviour) aims to develop systematic means of exploring, understanding and modelling systems where ICT is entangled with social structures. In particular, we will focus on behavioural patterns, dynamics and driving mechanisms of social structures whose interactions are ICT-mediated, from the level of individuals to the level of groups and large-scale social systems. Our unique approach is based on combined expertise in complex systems and the social sciences. By contrast with the majority of complexity studies that start from extremely simplified assumptions concerning social dynamics and concentrate on diagnosing structural features of social systems, we emphasize that ICT networks are dynamic systems of interacting humans and groups, and fully utilize the theories and methods of the social sciences are to be in ICTeCollective. http://www.cabdyn.ox.ac.uk/complexity_ICTeCollective.asp

 OCOPOMO  Open COllaboration for POlicyMOdelling (Otwarta współpraca jako czynnik wspierający modelowanie polityki)
OCOPOMO was developing and demonstrating a new “off the mainstream” bottom-up approach to policy modelling, combined with e-governance tools and techniques, and advanced ICT technologies. The OCOPOMO project created an ICT-based environment integrating lessons and practical techniques from complexity science, agent based social simulation, foresight scenario analysis and stakeholder participation. Policy issues which are high on the European political agenda served as a testbed for the applied approach to policy modelling. http://www.ocopomo.eu/

 Emergence by Design  – Projektowanie zjawisk emergentnych
Emergence by Design was an EU-funded research project looking at developing new ways to measure impact which places more emphasis on the experience of the intended users. It will explore how we can design a service keeping in mind what is important to the user, as well as its economic impact. The use of ICT was central to the project – with managers of online communities able to identify social values and monitor the evolution of projects. This had the potential to produce a more responsive, engaging, and impactful way of developing policy and realising social change. This is part of the ongoing work of the European Centre of Living Technologies at the University of Venice to develop a theory of innovation dynamics. Project research aspired to satisfy two kinds of objective. The first was to develop the foundations of a theory of innovation dynamics that concatenates design and emergence. The second was to design a set of processes, enabled in part by new ICT, that can help to mobilize civil society to construct a socially sustainable future. These processes can assist the managers of online communities of networks of innovators to enhance the generative potential of relationships among members of these communities; monitor innovation cascades to detect signals pointing to the onset of endogenously generated social crises, as part of a system innovation policy that goes beyond the current strategy of priming the pump of invention; and implement a new kind of dynamic evaluation for socially-oriented innovation projects, which can provide stakeholders with a multivalent representation of the social consequences induced by the projects to help them steer the resulting cascades of change in socially positive directions. The process designs was be informed by the theory, and the theory was be informed by the experience of consortium partners immersed in the world of relevant practice. http://cordis.europa.eu/emegencebydesign and https://www.kl.nl/en/projects/emergence-by-design/

 NESS  – Non-Eqilibrium Social Science in ICT and Economics
Traditional economics uses models that assume limited interaction between agents, simplistic behavioural assumptions and equilibrium analysis. Yet economies and social systems are often strongly correlated, heterogeneous and far from equilibrium hence traditional approaches do not provide the tools to understand, model or design systems in rapid change. The current financial and world order constitute such systems and heavily rely on ICT (such as trading platforms, social media and novel e-business models) that is transforming the way modern economies and societies function. For many years researchers from diverse disciplines and communities, such as Complex Systems, non-orthodox Economics and Agent-Based Modelling have proposed alternative formalised models that capture aspects of non-equilibrium social systems yet these endeavours have been fragmented and peripheral. With this co-ordination action we will bring together leading researchers within Non-Equilibrium Social Science (NESS) to build a community, address current pressing issues and engage with policy makers, business and other stakeholders. We aim to create a new ICT and NESS-aware paradigm for economics and foster its application in areas of policy and business for social and economic progress. http://cordis.europa.eu/ness

 WORKCARE SYNERGIES  – Dissemination of Synthesized FP Results on Work-Care, Family Policy, Female Empowerment, Flexicurity, Social Quality and Cohesion for Efficient Stakeholder and Policy Use
Work Care Synergies was a support action with the aim of disseminating research findings of previous EU Framework Programme projects in the field of workcare. The project brought together research on labour market transitions across the life-course. The dissemination scheme was based on the concept of local key mediator teams, which were based in each of the seven countries where dissemination took place. The mediator teams consisted of local researchers, together with knowledge transfer and communication specialists. Teams collected, selected and prepared relevant findings from different Framework Programme projects in the form of theme-specific and target group-oriented discussion materials and other dissemination tools including films and newsletters. The goal was to make existing research findings available to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), policy makers, trade unions, companies and other stakeholders. Local information and discussion events took place in Austria, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Italy and Portugal. Materials and discussion results were summarised and policy recommendations published. In ISS the team included prof. dr hab. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr hab. Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak and conducted the work package “Gender Elites and Work-Care Relations” http://workcaresynergies.eu/elites-and-work-care-relations/ and http://cordis.europa.eu/wcs

 COMPETE 2  – Civilisation Competencies and Sustainable Regional Development in Poland
Project financed by Polish-Norwegian Research Programme, coordinated by prof. Barbary Liberdy and Department of Economy UW. Polish team included dr Ewa Gucwa-Leśny and Katarzyna Białek.

  GuestXR  GuestXR: A Machine Learning Agent for Social Harmony in eXtended Reality”. Research project supported by the Horizon 2020 Program.
Dates: 2022 – 2025

The GuestXR project aims to create an immersive online social space through extended reality, where the focus is on the existence of a machine learning agent called “The Guest”, which can facilitate interaction between participants to help them achieve their intended goals.

“The Guest” is able to analyse the individual and social behavior of the participants based on existing theoretical models from the point of view of neuroscience and social psychology. Additionally, thanks to machine learning, “The Guest” learns over time and becomes more effective in facilitating social interaction.

To modulate social interaction, “The Guest” manages to perform different multisensory actions using, for instance, visual or auditory elements to create particular states of mind
and stimulate a relaxed environment when detecting a conflict situation.

“The Guest” is trained to deal with different types of social interactions and is initially tested within situations that may involve conflict, that include participants with hearing impairment
or that involve changing attitudes towards climate change. Finally, there is an open call to include another innovative application for “The Guest” to be tested.

The GuestXR consortium, led by Eurecat through its Audiovisual Technologies Unit and the Consulting Department, is made up of eight organizations from six different countries involving
a multidisciplinary team with expertise on extended reality, machine learning, artificial intelligence, social psychology, neuroscience of emotions, multisensory integration, research ethics and technology transfer.

  HEART   – HEAlthier Cities through Blue-Green Regenerative Technologies: the HEART Approach. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 959234).
Dates: 01.03.2021 – 28.02.2025

European and international cities face crucial global geopolitical, economic, and environmental challenges. Urban areas are under heavy pressure to enhance policies towards more sustainable and livable environments that support public health (PH) and well-being (WB). Under the HEART project, we aim to alternate the conventional approach to urban planning and revitalization dominantly based on profit criteria with routinized methodologies, towards the integrated nature-based methods and concepts with emphasis on health, societal and environmental aspects through the unique concept of HCPM (Health Centred Planning Methodology). To achieve this, HEART aims at engaging local communities to map the needs and challenges and to express their expectations/preferences so that delivered solutions are planned/created together and finally embraced by the citizens.

The HEART project will implement its novel methodology in three demo sites/areas Athens (Attika region, Greece), Belgrade (Serbia), and Aarhus (Midtjylland region, Denmark).
The consortium of 18 partners will serve with its broad expert knowledge and assist these municipalities in planning and designing participatory processes and also building Nature-Based and Blue-Green Solutions. Moreover, the HEART project will promote interaction and recreation facilities for both mental and physical health, positive emotional experience,
and a sense of healthy environment (cleaner water, air, soil) with advanced support of “circular economy” (recycling of material resources, urban farming), simply “healthy city for happy people”.

The HEART project is coordinated by the National Technical University of Athens (NTUA) in cooperation with 18 partners from academia and different fields of expertise: health, urban planning, social studies, technological and innovation-oriented, along with cities/regions and their utility companies (water, green infrastructure, environment).

HEART website https://heartproject.eu/ (hiperlink)

HEART project on FB https://www.facebook.com/heartproject2020/ (hiperlink)

  ISEED  Inclusive Science and European Democracies. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 959234).
Dates: 01.02.2021–31.01.2024

  HumanE-AI-Net   – HumanE AI Network. This project has received funding from the European Research Council (ERC) under the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme (grant agreement No 952026).
Dates: 01.09.2020 – 31.08.2023
The EU-funded HumanE-AI-Net project brings together leading European research centres, universities and industrial enterprises into a network of centres of excellence. Leading global artificial intelligence (AI) laboratories will collaborate with key players in areas, such as human-computer interaction, cognitive, social and complexity sciences. The project is looking forward to drive researchers out of their narrowly focused field and connect them with people exploring AI on a much wider scale. The challenge is to develop robust, trustworthy AI systems that can ‘understand’ humans, adapt to complex real-world environments and interact appropriately in complex social settings. HumanE-AI-Net will lay the foundations for designing the principles for a new science that will make AI based on European values and closer to Europeans.

HumanE AI Network | HumanE-AI-Net Project | H2020 | CORDIS | European Commission (europa.eu)

 EuPOLIS  Integrated NBS-based Urban Planning Methodology for Enhancing the Health and Well-being of Citizens: the euPOLIS Approach
Dates: 2020-2024
EuPOLIS aims to:
(a) replace the traditional perception in which engineering systems are built to protect the environment at significant costs. We aim to deploy natural systems to simultaneously enhance Public Health (PH) and Well-Being (WB), and create resilient urban ecosystems at lower Life-Cycle Costs;
(b) propose a structured approach to activate the hidden possibilities and services of existing Natural and Engineered urban systems, integrate them and define their joint social, cultural and economic effects, as a main vehicle for Ecosystem Business Services and Investment;
(c) regenerate and rehabilitate urban ecosystems, while in parallel addressing key challenges such as low environmental quality, fragmentation and low biodiversity in public spaces,
water-stressed resources, undervalued use of space in deprived areas and therefore we improve urban livability;
(d) improve urban resilience (operational, social and economic) through interventions designed using a set of proper urban planning matrices, which catalyse stakeholder participation,
with a special attention to gender, age and disability perspectives within the process;
(e) create inclusive and accessible urban spaces by systematically implementing gender mainstreaming strategies and novel participatory tools into all phases and processes of project development to ensure that the needs of diverse groups are considered. We aim to stimulate active communities’ participation throughout the process;
(f) to improve citizens’ quality of life providing them with pleasant socializing open areas that stimulate social exchange and inclusivity;
(g) monitor and validate the impact of all interventions to PH and WB of citizens. EuPOLIS solutions will be demonstrated in 4 European cities: Belgrade, Lodz, Piraeus and Gladsaxe.
We have also included some follower cities (Bogota, Palermo, Limassol and Trebinje) in order to replicate and demonstrate the advantages of our innovations via mentoring and coaching.

 NAWA  – Project financed by an academic exchange agency NAWA  pt „Social Space, Fields and Relationality (SSFR) in Contemporary and Historical Social Analysis. Research Network”. Detailed information is available at the link.
Dates: 01.12.2019-30.09.2022

 SOPS4RI Standard Opereating Procedures fo Research Integrity. (Standardowe Procedury Operacyjne na rzecz Rzetelności Badawczej) .Program CSA.
Dates: 2019-2022
The objective of the Standard Operating Procedures for Research Integrity (SOPs4RI) project is to promote
excellent research that aligns with the principles and norms of the European Code of Conduct for Research Integrity, and to counter research misconduct. SOPs4RI will stimulate transformational processes across European research performing organisations (RPOs) and research funding organisations (RFOs) to achieve this goal. SOPs4RI involves a mixed methods, co-creative approach to the development and empirical validation of standard operating procedures (SOPs) and guidelines to cultivate research integrity and reduce detrimental practices. With rigorous methods, the SOPs and guidelines will be developed by experts and key stakeholders and will be offered as flexible tools for RPOs and RFOs to develop Research Integrity Promotion Plans. Active researchers in the EU and selected OECD countries will be surveyed as part of the validation procedure. Proposals for appropriate incentives and novel sanctions will be developed to promote adoption. The discipline-sensitive SOPs and guidelines will support the production of sound, trust-worthy knowledge, a precondition for tackling the current crisis of truth and trust in science. In turn, a strong research integrity culture and high epistemic quality of research-based knowledge will make a vital contribution to addressing the EU’s current and future challenges. SOPs4RI is fully aligned with the core objectives of the Science with and for Society 2018-20 Work Programme and will draw upon and liaise with other projects in the work programme. To maximise the feasibility and impact
of the project’s outcomes, SOPs4RI engages with key stakeholders in the ERA and beyond in an iterative development, cost benefit assessment, and real world validation
of the toolbox of SOPs and guidelines. A strategic communication plan leveraging the support of key partners will be implemented to maximise short, medium, and longer term impacts.

 HumanE AI Toward AI Systems That Augment and Empower Humans by Understanding Us, our Society and the World Around Us (Horizon2020, Coordination and Support Action)
Dates: 01.03.2019-29.02.2020
Humane AI is a preparatory action consortium, with 35 partners from 17 countries, including four large industrial members, which will define the details of all aspects necessary to implement a full large-scale research project, and mobilize major scientific, industrial, political and public support for the vision. The full large scale research project HumanE AI will develop the scientific foundations and technological breakthroughs needed to shape the ongoing artificial intelligence (AI) revolution. The goal is to design and deploy AI systems that enhance human capabilities and empower both individuals and society as a whole to develop AI that extends rather than replaces human intelligence. This vision fits very well into the ambitions articulated by the EC in its Communication on AI but cannot be achieved by legislation or political directives alone. Instead it needs fundamentally new solutions to core research problems in AI and human-computer interaction (HCI), especially to help people understand actions recommended or performed by AI systems.
Challenges include: learning complex world models; building effective and fully explainable machine learning systems; adapting AI systems to dynamic, open-ended real-world environments (in particular robots and autonomous systems in general); achieving in-depth understanding of humans and complex social contexts; and enabling self-reflection within AI systems. The focus is on human-centered AI, with a strong emphasis on ethics, values by design, and appropriate consideration of related legal and social issues. The Humane AI project will mobilize a research landscape far beyond the direct project funding and create a unique innovation ecosystem that offers substantial return on investment. It will result in significant disruption across its socio-economic impact areas, including Industry 4.0, health & well-being, mobility, education, policy and finance. It will spearhead the efforts required to help Europe achieve a step-change in AI uptake across the economy.

 SMART (Tender 2017/0090) The mechanisms that shape Social Media and their impact on Society
Consortium: Consiglio Nazionale delle Ricerche CNR (leader), University of Warsaw, PlusValue, Human Ecosystems Relazioni HER and Catchy SRL.
Dates: 2018-2019
Since the appearance of Facebook and Twitter, the impact of social networks on the way people consume, produce and interact with information has grown exponentially. This affected the habits and behaviour of people – and particularly of younger generations – in the way they consume and interact with information. The aim of this proposal is to study the mechanisms that shape social media and their impact on society and try to respond to the key challenges posed by the increasingly broad and diverse community of stakeholders interested in this topic, including researchers, policy makers, regulators, journalists, media companies (traditional and new), industry, civil society organisations and citizens. There are two main objectives of the project: understanding how information spreads on social media and understanding the emergence of narratives and change of behaviour in the age of social media.

 CLIC  Circular models Leveraging Investments in Cultural heritage adaptive reuse.
Research project supported by the Horizon 2020 Program. The CLIC project addresses significant challenges of cultural heritage and landscape adaptive reuse. It progresses the agenda on heritage-led local sustainable development by developing flexible, transparent, integrated and inclusive tools to manage the change of cultural landscape, which are required to leverage the potential of cultural heritage for Europe. The investment gap in cultural heritage and landscape regeneration will be addressed by CLIC through careful evaluation of all costs, of “complex values” and impacts of adaptive reuse, selecting function(s) not only linked to tourism attractiveness, but also for the well-being improvement, providing critical evidence of wealth, jobs, social, cultural, environmental and economic returns on the investment. The overarching goal of the CLIC trans-disciplinary research project is to identify evaluation tools to test, implement, validate and share innovative “circular” financing, business and governance models for systemic adaptive reuse of cultural heritage and landscape, demonstrating the economic, social, environmental convenience, in terms of long lasting economic, cultural and environmental wealth. The project will be launched in December 2017. In ISS the project will be coordinated by dr Anna Domaradzka.

 FAB-MOVE  For a Better Tomorrow: Social Entrepreneurship on the Move
The project is funded by the EU Marie Skłodowska-Curie Research and Innovation Staff Exchange (RISE). It brings together researchers and practitioners in order to explore the question of how social enterprises can grow and flourish. These objectives will be achieved through a carefully crafted network of 28 academic and non-academic partner organizations co-operating worldwide. At the heart of the project lies the idea to promote international and inter-sector collaboration through research and innovation staff exchanges, and sharing of knowledge and ideas from research to the market. International and intersectoral secondments (1-12 months) of staff members from all partner organizations build the foundation for comparative research on social enterprises, their environments, innovations and challenges in different contexts. FAB-MOVE focuses on the embeddedness of social enterprises and its impact on their evolution. It identifies crucial success factors for a sustainable development of these new and innovative organizations in an internationally comparative perspective. Thoroughly analyzed case studies serve as best practices by highlighting how social enterprises overcome crucial problems and manage to grow in different social areas and various regions around the world. In particular, the cases will shed light on how managers of social enterprises cooperate with stakeholders and how their environment composed of promoting actors and existing (political) structures meet their needs in order to improve social cohesion all over Europe. ISS project team includes: dr Anna Domaradzka (coordinator), prof. Renata Siemienska (expert advisor), dr Ilona Matysiak, mgr Joanna Jasińska and mgr Agata Żbikowska. http://www.uni-muenster.de/IfPol/FAB-MOVE

 COST Action IS1409 Gender and health impacts of policies extending working life in western countries
The goal of this Action is to advance scientific knowledge about the gendered impacts of extended working life on the health and economic well-being of older workers in Europe and to support informed gender-sensitive future policy, explicitly considering the differential needs of women and men. This requires exploring the differential impacts that such policy may have for the health and economic well-being of diverse groups of older workers, using a life course perspective which has been identified as an innovative approach to analysing policy impacts. While life course analysis of pensions has been employed in some COST countries, there is a need to build a research network to develop capacity in life course methods and in gender-aware policy analysis to enable accurate, timely, multi-disciplinary, cross-national analysis of employment policy and practice for older workers. Expected deliverables include: (a) creating a website; (b) depositary database of scientific measures and policy tool-kits; (c) facilitating training schools, Short Term Scientific Missions and conferences; (d) disseminating scientific reports, proceedings, academic publications, policy. Duration: 4.12.2014-27.04.2019. COST STSM Manager: prof. Renata Siemieńska-Żochowska. http://www.cost.eu/COST_Actions/isch/IS1409

 GendEQU  Gender Equality at the University
The project was funded by the Polish-Norwegian Research Programme. Polish partners included the Department of Economy (coordinator) and Institute for Social Studies UW, the Nordic Institute for studies in Innovation, Research and Education (NIFU) was a Norwegian partner. This project was aimed at investigating various forms of gender discrimination in academia. Studies show that despite substantial progress, cultural, economic, social and political barriers to women’s progress in science still persist. In this interdisciplinary project we will apply the gender mainstreaming perspective to several important aspects of this issue. ISS Center of Interdisciplinary Gender Research was responsible for WP1 and WP2. Both involved qualitative data collection  and analysis of available statistical data. In WP1 (GRANTS) we analyzed access to grant opportunities in Poland and Norway based on existing statistical data and qualitative study. For WP2 (PHDS) we conducted a quantitative study with people 5 years after their PhD (based on earlier Norwegian study) and run intertemporal and international (Poland vs. Norway) comparisons of career paths of male and female PhD students. The findings will feed into recommendations for administrators of higher education institutions as well as granting bodies and policy makers. We also aim to raise awareness of researchers, students and the general public as to where unequal treatment of women in academia remain. Wherever applicable, we also wish to transfer best practices from the more gender-aware Norwegian system to Poland. In ISS the project was conducted by prof. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak. http://grape.uw.edu.pl/gendequ/

 ​EFESEIIS  – Enabling the flourishing and evolution of social entrepreneurship for innovative and inclusive societies.
Research project supported by the Seventh Framework Programme and funded by the European Commission. EFESEIIS produced new knowledge aimed at supporting individuals, authorities or organizations that are involved or are willing to involve themselves in the social and solidarity-based economy. It aimed at providing a better understanding of Social Entrepreneurship using thorough analysis of data gathered in 10 European countries. EFESEIIS involved around 1100 stakeholders – from social entrepreneurs, policy makers, financial organizations, and local authorities to individuals – in its research activities. It’s objectives included: 1) constructing an Evolutionary Theory of Social Entrepreneurship; 2) identifying the features of an “Enabling Eco-System for Social Entrepreneurship”; 3)  identifying the “New Generation” of Social Entrepreneurs; and 4) providing advice to stakeholders.  The research allowed to identify the the macro-meso and micro conditions under which Social Enterprises can contribute effectively and efficiently to build an inclusive and innovative society and will lead to a database of good practices. It also led to constructing a theory which explains  differences between countries, taking into account the history and trends of Social Entrepreneurship, the different operational and organisational forms, the role of communities, cultures and tradition, the role of social innovation, the role of the dialogue between the State and Citizens on Social Inclusion and how social entrepreneurship and institutions co-evolved during time. During the entire duration of the project, data from interviews, focus groups and questionnaires will be gathered with the aim of providing targeted advices to stakeholders. In ISS the project was conducted by the team lead by dr hab. Ryszard Praszkier. http://www.fp7-efeseiis.eu

 WILCO  Welfare innovations at the local level in favour of cohesion
Research project supported by the Seventh Framework Programme and funded by the European Commission. WILCO examined, through cross-national comparative research in 20 European cities and 10 countries, how local welfare systems affect social inequalities andhow they favour social cohesion with a special focus on the missing link between innovations at the local level and their successful transfer and implementation to other settings. The results were used, through strong interaction with stakeholders and urban policy recommendations, to link immediately to the needs of practitioners. In doing so, we connected issues of immediate practical relevance with state-of-the-art academic research on how approaches and instruments in local welfare function in practice. In Poland research was conducted in Warsaw and Płock. In ISS the project was conducted by prof. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak. http://www.wilcoproject.eu

 Qlectives  Socially Intelligent Systems for Quality (Społecznie inteligentne systemy dla wytwarzania jakości) 
Using a complexity perspective, QLectives understand, experiment with, design and build cooperative socially intelligent ICT systems composed of self-organising peers, that enable and support emergent “quality collectives” to enhance, for instance, scientific innovation and decentralized media distribution.
We brought together complex system scientists, social scientists and distributed systems engineers to produce new theories and algorithms. Our method was that of empirical experimentation using “living labs” involving thousands of people connected over the internet into collectives. The project generated better theoretical understanding of complex techno-social systems, and how trust and reputation may emerge among a community and be used to enhance quality. The work was organised into four synergistic streams: 1) Theoretical and algorithmic foundations; 2) Algorithm design, simulation and evaluation; 3) Empirical data-sets collection, processing and validation, and 4) Platform and living lab implementation. As a basis we extended an already deployed, mature, P2P technology platform and used two existing user communities: the EconoPhysics Forum and Tribler. Our results were applied to create two examples of how ICT moulds and becomes part of the systems to which it is applied: QScience – a peer-to-peer application for facilitating scientific innovation by supporting scientific communities, rating activities for quality to identify potential collaborators, hot spots and breakthroughs, and disseminating the right information to the right peers promptly; and QMedia – a peer-to-peer application for transforming media distribution by dynamically identifying shared interest communities and recommending quality contents to them using streaming media technology. http://www.qlectives.eu/

 Asysst  Action For The Science Of Complex Systems And Socially Intelligent ICT
ASSYST coordinate research around the call Science of complex systems for socially intelligent ICT (COSI-ICT) in the context of the wider science of complex systems (CS). ASSYST made Complex Systems science and the potential of COSI-ICT better understood by scientific policy makers and funders at national and international levels in Europe. It showcased sucessful applications of the science and informed European policy makers on the global context of European CS and COSI-ICT and funding polices. ASSYST advised policy makers and scientists on the state of the art, and provide high-quality input and advice for funding policies at national level and for the funding agencies of the European Commission including FP7. The project promoted applications of complex systems and COSI-ICT in the public and private sectors, and publicise successful applications and built bridges between complex systems scientists and industry and commerce in Europe, to actively promote civil and commercial applications of the new ICT-driven science. ASSYST achieved its mission through organising many meetings across Europe and around the world with targeted outcomes related to its objectives, through proactive engagement with policymakers, the business community, and the public sector. It provided open educational resources to promote complex systems science and COSI-ICT, and conference support for rapid dissemination of complex systems and COSI-ICT research. It collected information and publish it in easily accessible forms available through an excellent ‘one stop’ CS and COSI-ICT web site. To make the impact of ASSYST sustainable in the long term, it worked closely with the Complex Systems Society which will take over its assets and continue its mission when the project ends. http://cordis.europa.eu/assyst

 ICTeCollective  ICTeCollective – Harnessing ICT-enabled collective social behaviour  (Sterowanie kolektywnymi zachowaniami społecznymi zachodzącymi dzięki technologiom informacyjnym)
ICTeCollective (Harnessing ICT enabled collective social behaviour) aims to develop systematic means of exploring, understanding and modelling systems where ICT is entangled with social structures. In particular, we will focus on behavioural patterns, dynamics and driving mechanisms of social structures whose interactions are ICT-mediated, from the level of individuals to the level of groups and large-scale social systems. Our unique approach is based on combined expertise in complex systems and the social sciences. By contrast with the majority of complexity studies that start from extremely simplified assumptions concerning social dynamics and concentrate on diagnosing structural features of social systems, we emphasize that ICT networks are dynamic systems of interacting humans and groups, and fully utilize the theories and methods of the social sciences are to be in ICTeCollective. http://www.cabdyn.ox.ac.uk/complexity_ICTeCollective.asp

 OCOPOMO  Open COllaboration for POlicyMOdelling (Otwarta współpraca jako czynnik wspierający modelowanie polityki)
OCOPOMO was developing and demonstrating a new “off the mainstream” bottom-up approach to policy modelling, combined with e-governance tools and techniques, and advanced ICT technologies. The OCOPOMO project created an ICT-based environment integrating lessons and practical techniques from complexity science, agent based social simulation, foresight scenario analysis and stakeholder participation. Policy issues which are high on the European political agenda served as a testbed for the applied approach to policy modelling. http://www.ocopomo.eu/

 Emergence by Design  – Projektowanie zjawisk emergentnych
Emergence by Design was an EU-funded research project looking at developing new ways to measure impact which places more emphasis on the experience of the intended users. It will explore how we can design a service keeping in mind what is important to the user, as well as its economic impact. The use of ICT was central to the project – with managers of online communities able to identify social values and monitor the evolution of projects. This had the potential to produce a more responsive, engaging, and impactful way of developing policy and realising social change. This is part of the ongoing work of the European Centre of Living Technologies at the University of Venice to develop a theory of innovation dynamics. Project research aspired to satisfy two kinds of objective. The first was to develop the foundations of a theory of innovation dynamics that concatenates design and emergence. The second was to design a set of processes, enabled in part by new ICT, that can help to mobilize civil society to construct a socially sustainable future. These processes can assist the managers of online communities of networks of innovators to enhance the generative potential of relationships among members of these communities; monitor innovation cascades to detect signals pointing to the onset of endogenously generated social crises, as part of a system innovation policy that goes beyond the current strategy of priming the pump of invention; and implement a new kind of dynamic evaluation for socially-oriented innovation projects, which can provide stakeholders with a multivalent representation of the social consequences induced by the projects to help them steer the resulting cascades of change in socially positive directions. The process designs was be informed by the theory, and the theory was be informed by the experience of consortium partners immersed in the world of relevant practice. http://cordis.europa.eu/emegencebydesign and https://www.kl.nl/en/projects/emergence-by-design/

 NESS  – Non-Eqilibrium Social Science in ICT and Economics
Traditional economics uses models that assume limited interaction between agents, simplistic behavioural assumptions and equilibrium analysis. Yet economies and social systems are often strongly correlated, heterogeneous and far from equilibrium hence traditional approaches do not provide the tools to understand, model or design systems in rapid change. The current financial and world order constitute such systems and heavily rely on ICT (such as trading platforms, social media and novel e-business models) that is transforming the way modern economies and societies function. For many years researchers from diverse disciplines and communities, such as Complex Systems, non-orthodox Economics and Agent-Based Modelling have proposed alternative formalised models that capture aspects of non-equilibrium social systems yet these endeavours have been fragmented and peripheral. With this co-ordination action we will bring together leading researchers within Non-Equilibrium Social Science (NESS) to build a community, address current pressing issues and engage with policy makers, business and other stakeholders. We aim to create a new ICT and NESS-aware paradigm for economics and foster its application in areas of policy and business for social and economic progress. http://cordis.europa.eu/ness

 WORKCARE SYNERGIES  – Dissemination of Synthesized FP Results on Work-Care, Family Policy, Female Empowerment, Flexicurity, Social Quality and Cohesion for Efficient Stakeholder and Policy Use
Work Care Synergies was a support action with the aim of disseminating research findings of previous EU Framework Programme projects in the field of workcare. The project brought together research on labour market transitions across the life-course. The dissemination scheme was based on the concept of local key mediator teams, which were based in each of the seven countries where dissemination took place. The mediator teams consisted of local researchers, together with knowledge transfer and communication specialists. Teams collected, selected and prepared relevant findings from different Framework Programme projects in the form of theme-specific and target group-oriented discussion materials and other dissemination tools including films and newsletters. The goal was to make existing research findings available to non-governmental organisations (NGOs), policy makers, trade unions, companies and other stakeholders. Local information and discussion events took place in Austria, the United Kingdom, Denmark, Hungary, Poland, Italy and Portugal. Materials and discussion results were summarised and policy recommendations published. In ISS the team included prof. dr hab. Renata Siemieńska (coordinator), dr Anna Domaradzka and dr Ilona Matysiak and conducted the work package “Gender Elites and Work-Care Relations” http://workcaresynergies.eu/elites-and-work-care-relations/ and http://cordis.europa.eu/wcs

 COMPETE 2  – Civilisation Competencies and Sustainable Regional Development in Poland
Project financed by Polish-Norwegian Research Programme, coordinated by prof. Barbary Liberdy and Department of Economy UW. Polish team included dr Ewa Gucwa-Leśny and Katarzyna Białek.