EUROFOUND: has launched its new programming document for 2017 to 2020

03 January 2017



Eurofound has launched its new programming document for 2017 to 2020. This document sets out the work that the Agency plans to undertake in the next four years to support European decision-makers in formulating policies to steer Europe through a challenging and uncertain period.

Eurofound has chosen six strategic areas of intervention in which to carry out activities aimed at providing the knowledge to achieve upward convergence of living and working conditions in the European Union. These are:
Working conditions and sustainable work
Industrial relations
Labour market change
Quality of life and public services
The digital age: Opportunities and challenges for work and employment
Monitoring convergence in the European Union

The first four are the core areas where Eurofound has established its expertise over four decades and ensure continuity in the Agency’s work. The final two introduce a new dimension into Eurofound’s activities as they capture cross-cutting challenges and paradigmatic changes – the digital shift and trends in convergence in the European Union – that are likely to have a transforming influence on the on the areas at the centre of Eurofound’s work.

Through the framework of these six areas of intervention, Eurofound aims to examine how living and working conditions can be improved through public policies and legislation, through the intervention of the social partners, and through practices at workplace level.

Eurofound Director Juan Menéndez-Valdés noted that the programming document ‘will guide Eurofound’s work and shape its contribution during this period in developing scientifically sound, timely and relevant knowledge to support policymakers in the EU institutions, social partners and national governments’.