Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen is one of the leading academic communities in The Netherlands. Situated in the oldest Dutch city, it has nine faculties and 17.500 students in 107 study programmes. It is a well-established centre for innovative, fundamental research. The research activities for the project will be conducted by the Department of Political Science and Public Administration within the Nijmegen School of Management, which has a combination of expertise on governance and civil society, unique to The Netherlands. The department’s research programme “Shifts in Government and Governance” focuses on changes and innovations in systems of governance and administration. It combines different disciplines such as political science, public administration, organisational theory, economics and gender studies, using both quantitative and qualitative methods of data collection. It has allowed the department to set up pioneering research that brings together different disciplinary and thematic perspectives.

Of particular relevance to the current project is the department’s combination of expertise on governance issues with close knowledge of service delivery and welfare policy at the local level. The department’s excellent reputation in research is witnessed by its active participation in EU Framework Programmes, e.g. the Network of Excellence “Civil Society and New Forms of Governance” (CINEFOGO), the “Third Sector European Policy” (TSEP) project, the “Mainstreaming Gender Equality” (MAGEEQ) project and the “Quality in Gender + Equality Policies” (QUING) project. It is also connected to the interdisciplinary Institute for Gender Studies (IGS) of the Radboud University Nijmegen.

Taco Brandsen

Taco Brandsen is leader of the Dutch team and Coordinator of the overall WILCO project.

Joost Fledderus

Joost Fledderus studied Sociology in Nijmegen and obtained his master’s degree cum laude in 2009. In 2011, he finished a master in Public Adminstration at the Free University in Amsterdam. His interests cover broad themes such as social cohesion, social inequality, life course transitions, and risk perception in contemporary society, and he is especially acquainted with quantitative research methods. As a PhD candidate, he will use the outputs of WILCO for his own PhD project, which will focus on the concept of co-production.

Astrid Souren

Astrid Souren is contactperson for the EU on financial and legal issues from the Coordinating Institution (RU). Astrid acquired her PhD on science-policy interaction in 2006 from Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, the Netherlands and has gained several years of research and education experience as Assistant Professor in Science Communication at Nijmegen University. She acted as research fellow and project coordinator at the Scientific Council for Government Policy in the Netherlands (www.wrr.nl). She developed knowledge and expertise on policy advice, science-policy interaction and coordination of international research and education programmes. Currently she works at Nijmegen School of Management, Dept. ICR (www.ru.nl/nsm/icr) on internationalization of education and research, including project management, and support on writing and acquiring international funds.

Francesca Broersma

Francesca Broersma obtained a Bachelor of Arts from University College Utrecht and a research master in Human Geography & Planning at the University of Utrecht. In 2009, she worked as a Junior Researcher at the department of migration studies of the Hellenic Foundation for European and Foreign Policy (ELIAMEP) in Athens, Greece. Here, she participated in the FP6 research project IDEA [Mediterranean and Eastern European Countries as New Immigration Destinations in Europe], focusing in particular on the migration pathways of Pakistanis and Bangladeshis in Greece.

Her general fields of interest are migration and urban regeneration. For her PhD project at the Radboud Universiteit Nijmegen she will question the extent to which innovations in welfare can truly promote social cohesion among ethnic minorities in specific.

www.ru.nl

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The Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (Münster University) is one of the major research centres in the country and one of the largest universities in Germany. More than 44 000 students are enrolled in 13 departments. The research activities will be taken up by the Institute of Political Science, which is part of the faculty of Social Sciences and Humanities. The Institute counts among the larger institutions of political science in Germany, and it stands out for its gender balance at the faculty level. The Institute is well equipped to host a research programme with the focus on the future of public management/administration because in the last decade it has developed expertise related to these fields. The Institute runs a Double-Diploma Program (B.A.) on Public Administration in co- operation with the University of Twente. The Institute is involved in the national strategy of the German government to strengthen civic engagement. Currently it outlines a state of the art on infrastructure of empowerment and inclusion of citizens in public management procedures in several local communities. The Institute’s emphasis on public administration research is completed by its fine reputation in the field of non-profit management and third sector policy research.

Through Annette Zimmer, the department has played a leading role in European related research activities by active participation in the 4th, 5th and 6th Framework Programmes, e.g. the Research and Training Network “Women in European Universities” (WEU), the Network of Excellence “Civil Society and New Forms of Governance” (Cinefogo), the Network of Excellence “Global Governance, Regionalisation and Regulation: The Role of the EU“, and the “Third Sector European Policy“(TSEP).

Dr. Annette Zimmer

The head of the team will be Prof. Dr. Annette Zimmer, Professor of Social Policy and Comparative Politics at the University of Münster. She was affiliated with the Program on Non-profit-Organizations at Yale University (USA), served as the DAAD Visiting Professor at the University of Toronto (Canada) and co-ordinated the EU-funded Research and Training Network „Women in European Universities“. She has served on the Board of the German Political Science Association and on the Advisory Board of the German Volunteer Survey. She is elected member of the Advisory Council of the „Centre for Social Policy“ at Bremen University. Recently, she became chairwoman of the Centre for Non-profit Management that administrates on behalf of Münster University the first university based master program on non-profit management. She is the author of numerous books and articles. Recent publications include Gendered Career Trajectories in Academia in Cross-National Perspective (with Renate Siemienska, 2007), Vereine – Zivilgesellschaft konkret (2007) and Future of Civil Society: Making Central European Nonprofit-Organizations Work (with Eckhard Priller, 2004).

Contact information: Annette Zimmer: zimmean@uni-muenster.de

Other members

Andrea Walter

Is employed as a researcher within the WILCO-project since February 2012. She is a PhD candidate at the Graduate School of Politics at the University of Münster and a doctoral fellow of Friedrich-Ebert-Stiftung. Andrea studied Political Science, Communication Science and Public Law at the University of Münster. Her research interests include the mechanisms of local governance, civil society and participation as well as methods of qualitative research.

Christina Rentzsch (M.A.)

Is a scientific assistant at the Department of Political Science at the University of Münster (WWU). She studied Communication Science, Political Science and Psychology in Münster and Hastings, USA. Currently she is a PhD-Student at the Graduate School of Politics at the WWU. In her dissertation she does research on the challenges NPOs and the third sector are facing.

Danielle Gluns

Danielle Gluns has joined the research team at the Westfälische Wilhelms-Universität Münster (WWU) for the WILCO project in September 2012. Currently, she is a PhD student at the WWU after graduating with a Master’s degree in International Migration and Intercultural Relations at the University of Osnabrück. Her research interests include social (in)equality, migration and education as well as international political systems.

Patrick Boadu

Is a student assistant at the chair of Prof. Dr. Annette Zimmer at the Department of Political Science, University of Münster. He studies political science, economics and public law in search of a Magister Artium degree. He is writing his Magister thesis about housing policy in the city of Münster. He spent parts of his studies at the Universidade Nova de Lisboa in Lisbon – Portugal and the Universidade Federal de Santa Catarina in Florianópolis – Brazil.

www.uni-muenster.de

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The Politecnico di Milano is the leading Italian University in the fields of engineering, architecture and planning. The Dipartimento di Architettura e Pianificazione (Architecture and Planning, DiAP) is the second largest Department in the Politecnico di Milano and the largest in the field of Architecture. The multidisciplinary approach is a particular characteristic of the department, that is able to offer expertise and products to meet emerging demands from processes of physical and social change. DiAP is active in many fields of research and consultancy, such as territorial analysis, analysis and design of planning processes, local policies, strategic planning, environmental planning, social planning, architectural and urban projects. The Diap promotes many international activities, including teaching staff mobility, international workshops, intensive programmes in cooperation with European partners, an international lecture series. The Social Policy Lab in the Diap specifically studies the relationship between sociological analysis and social policy and contributes through its research activities to the knowledge and evaluation of the policies and social intervention programmes.

The objective of the Social Policy Lab is to provide tools for comprehension and guidance for those who make and carry out social policy. Thus the SPL engages in both theoretic and applicative research and study activities. In particular, the Lab seeks to shed light on the following:

• organizational, institutional, and cultural processes which define the content and method of social policy, and the social and political effects of its subsequent implementation;
• the social, territorial, and political processes and factors which contribute to social vulnerability and social risk, with a wide range view of problems of social cohesion, especially with regards to urban economic development dynamics;
• forms of third sector organization and political action, in addition to coordination between public actors, non-profit organizations and private actors, and citizen involvement in the definition and implementation of social policy;
• problems of disability and dependence, strategies adopted by individuals and families to overcome such problems, and the social policies and reform programmes created to provide for the care of and assistance to disabled members of the society;
• poverty, urban policies and urban conflicts in global cities.

Costanzo Ranci Ortigosa

The team leader, Costanzo Ranci Ortigosa, is a full professor of Economic Sociology at the Polytechnic of Milan, Faculty of Architecture and Society. Prof. Dr. Ranci is one of Italy’s internationally known experts on welfare policy. He is the scientific director of the Master program “Social planning. Design, management and evaluation of Social Policies”, promoted by Polytechnic of Milan, in cooperation with the Institute for Social Research. Since 2005 he is a member of the ASP Board, Alta Scuola Politecnica (Master of Science in Engineering and Architecture) founded by Polytechnic of Milano and Polytechnic of Torino. He has published numerous articles and books on social policy and the welfare state, the third sector and voluntary organizations, social exclusion and social risks, as well as social movements. These include Dilemmas of the Welfare Mix: The New Structure of Welfare in an Era of Privatization (2002); Italy: Observatory for the Development of Social Services (2003); E. Pavolini, C. Ranci (2008), Restructuring the welfare state: reforms in log-term care in Western European countries, Journal of European Social Policy, vol. 3; p. 246-259.

Contact information: Costanzo Ranci: costanzo.ranci@polimi.it

Other members

Giuliana Costa

Is Assistant Professor of Sociology since 2008. Her main research interests are welfare policies and the relationship between space, economy and society. She works at DIAP- Politecnico di Milano since 1998. She is one of the founders of the “Laboratorio di Politiche Sociali” at the same University. After her graduation in Business at Università Bocconi and many years of professional activity in public and private organizations, she got a PhD in Sociology at the Università degli Studi di Milano.

Stefania Sabatinelli

Is post-doc research fellow at the Department of Architecture and Planning of the Polytechnic of Milan, where she teaches compared Welfare Policies. Her research activities mainly deal with comparative analysis of welfare systems, with a focus on activation and care policies, and with particular attention about relations among different scales and sectors.

www.polimi.it

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The University of Geneva is one of the major universities of the world (classified by Newsweek in 2006 as the best European University) and member of the League of European Research Universities. The Sociology department of the University of Geneva has a long tradition. Founded in 1886, it is one of the oldest departments of this discipline in the world. Many famous scholars taught sociology in Geneva, such as De Sismondi, Louis Warin, Jean Piaget or Roger Girod. Today, the department counts about 50 researchers and teachers and is the most important sociology school in Switzerland. The profile is more methodologically than thematically oriented and has its strengths in the multiplicity of approaches and schools represented.

The department has its own laboratory and many mandates at the international, national and local levels (half of the staff is employed in research). Past and current projects include research on public discourses, collective mobilizations, and social exclusion; public expenditures; public relations of government and administration; sexual interactions in face of HIV/Aids and intimacy dynamic; community health; migration, asylum, and integration policy; risk administration; evaluation of the coordination and service platform in the domain of drugs; and the integration of the excluded from the competitive labour market in Europe. In particular, the Department has been involved or is involved in a number of EU or ESF funded projects (currently ESSE, IMISCOE, COST Action IS0603, SANCO-Nowherehere).

Sandro Cattacin

Sandro Cattacin, the head of the team is a full professor and Director of the Department of Sociology of Geneva. He studied economic history, political science and political philosophy at the University of Zurich. With an Italian fellowship, he participated in a PhD programme on political and social science at the European University Institute in Florence. After his graduate studies, he started to work as a researcher at the University of Geneva and obtained a position as “Maitre-assistant” in 1992, as executive director of RESOP in 1997, and as “Professeur adjoint” in sociology and political science in April 1999. At the University of Geneva, he has taught on Swiss politics, comparative methods, political theory and social policy topics. From 1993 to 2000, he was also “charge de cours” at the University of Fribourg at the Department of social policy and social work (with teaching on welfare state theories). During the academic year 1998/1999, he was invited to teach at the University of Konstanz, faculty of administrative science. From 1999 to 2004, he was Director of the Swiss Forum for Migration and Population Studies at the University of Neuchatel, and nominated Associate Professor at the Faculty of Law and Social Science at the same University. From the end of 2000 until 2006, Sandro Cattacin was a part-time professor at the IDHEAP in Lausanne (in social and health policy). In 2005, he was Willy Brandt Guest professor at the University of Malmö and in 2007 Guest Professor at the Observatoire du changement social in Paris (Sciences-po). He has published extensively on issues of social policy, social exclusion and welfare. Recent publications include “Migration and Health. Difference sensitivity from an organisational perspective”, “Why not Ghettos” (2006), Monitoring rightwing extremist attitudes, xenophobia and misanthropy in Switzerland” (2006), “Retard, rattrapage, normalisation (on the Swiss welfare state” (2006).

Contact information: Sandro Cattacin: Sandro.Cattacin@unige.ch

Other members

Nathalie Kapko

Is a researcher in the department of sociology of the University of Geneva. She got a Phd in sociology about the French second-generations at school, in the labour market and how social trajectories shape Islamic beliefs and practises among the youth. This Phd thesis was turned into a book published by the Presses de Science Po in 2007. Nathalie Kakpo also worked on the French urban riots and she contributed to a book written on the issue and translated into Italian. After her PhD, she carried on with her research in Milan and London working on integration of immigrants into the European labour markets and interethnic cohabitation in urban neighborhoods.

Patricia Naegeli

Is sociologist specialized in the field of the Gender studies, more specifically related to the inequalities on the labour market and the gendered positions and discriminations in the private and public life. She is a researcher at the department of sociology.

www.unige.ch

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Founded in 1450, The University of Barcelona is ranked among the top highest public universities in Spain, in terms of both the quality of the teaching it offers and the productivity and quality of the research carried out by its members. The UB has 109 departments and more than 5,000 full-time researchers, technicians and research assistants, most of whom work in the UB’s 249 research groups as recognized and supported by the Generalitat de Catalunya (Catalan Government). In the area of research, the University of Barcelona has maintained its position as the top Spanish university in the most renowned international rankings and it has continued to improve the overall position as well. As a result, the UB was named to the prestigious League of European Research Universities (LERU) on 1 January 2010, making the UB the only Spanish university to become a member of that esteemed association. In 2009, the UB, together with the Technical University of Catalonia (UPC), won the distinction of Campus of International Excellence for our joint project Barcelona Knowledge Campus (BKC), and in 2010 the UB again won recognition for its project Health Universitat de Barcelona Campus (HUBc).

The research activities for the project will be conducted by the research team about Citizenship, Politics and Welfare, within the Center for the Study of Culture, Politics and Society (CECUPS) of the Department of Sociological Theory.  CECUPS is one of the research centers at the University of Barcelona, which is also consolidated by the Catalan Government. It integrates sociologists, political scientists and other social researchers belonging to different Spanish universities. Their common goal is to foster knowledge in this area. Recognizing the complexity of this challenge CECUPS and their members work at different levels. First and foremost CECUPS focuses on doing high standard academic research. At the same time, however, it also focuses on providing research training as well as on promoting their subjects within the scientific community and within the public sphere. The CECUPS is devoted to the sociological analysis of cultural and political subjects, in particular subjects placed in the confluence of those two realms or dimensions of social reality. In this way, and mainly from a comparative perspective, it makes research about five main lines: (1) Cultural policy, (2) Art, culture and territory, (3) Culture and social change, (4) Citizenship, politics and Welfare and (5) Comparative sociology of modernity. The most relevant research carried out in the topic of “Citizenship, politics and welfare”  through Teresa Montagut, are The Evaluation of Social Policies against Social Exclusion at the Local Urban Level (1996-1998); Evaluation of Good Practices for equality of opportunities for women (1997); The Third Sector and the Development of European Public Policy (TSEP, 2002-2005); and, in Spanish, “Ciudadania proactiva: los retos de la democracia” (Proactive Citizenship) (2001- 2004), “El impacto del Tercer Sector aragonés en las areas de Educación, Salud y Bienestar Social” (The Aragon Third Sector in Education, Health and Social Welfare fields) (2004) “Els reptes del Tercer Sector a Barcelona ciutat en l’àrea d’infància” (The challenge of the Third Sector in the city of Barcelona in young areas).

Teresa Montagut

The head of the team, Teresa Montagut, is full professor of Social Policy and Economic Sociology at the University of Barcelona. She holds a master’s degree in Economics and received her doctorate in Sociology at the University of Barcelona. She is involved in Third Sector and Citizenship research and participated in the Third Sector European Policy (TSEP) project. Her publications include issues of social policies, gender studies, voluntary and third sector organizations, and democracy and citizenship. She is member of the Centre Estudis sobre Cultura Política i Societat (CECUPS) Research Group of the University of Barcelona.

Contact information: Maite Montagut montagut@ub.edu, Web CECUPS

Other members

Manuel Aguilar Hendrickson

Sociologist, he teaches at the University of Barcelona. His main research interests have to do with personal social services and social care. He has taken part in several research projects on social exclusion, minimum income and integration programmes and he presently focuses on the institutional arrangements of social services in Spain in a comparative perspective.

Marta Llobet Estany

Sociologist, Lecturer at the University of Barcelona and a member of the Centre de recherche de Montréal sur les inégalités sociales et les discriminations (CREMIS). Her research has focused on community development, organization and mediation, the analysis of social work practice and social exclusion, and the squatter movement. She has taken part of PROXCIT project on outreach and citizenship in Quebec, Netherlands and Catalonia.

Cristina López

Degree in Geography and History. PhD in Sociology. Lecturer at the Unviersity of Barcelona. Her research has focused on Urban Demography, Housing, Migrations and Residential Mobility.

Gemma Vilà

Sociologist and Lecturer at the Department of Sociological Theory, Philosophy of Law and Methodology of Social Sciences at the University of Barcelona where she is teaching and researching. Her research topics have focused on urban sociology, urban and population studies and social structure.

Anna Escobedo

Lecturer at the Department of Sociology and Organisational Analysis of the University of Barcelona (UB, Spain). Her research focuses on comparative social policy, family and social change – with a special emphasis on the work-life balance; the relationship between formal and informal work; and professional developments in care work and care services. She is member of the International Network on Leave Policies and Research (www.leavenetwork.org).

Sebastià Riutort

Sociologist, PhD student in Sociology at the University of Barcelona (FPU fellow in the Department of Sociological Theory). His research focuses on strategies and processes of social innovation articulated by new cooperative initiatives particularly in the field of renewable energy sources: the diffusion of their model and their institutionalisation possibilities. He has also been involved as assistant in the project RESCOOP 20-20-20 supported by Intelligent Energy Europe Program (2012-2015, IEE).

www.ub.edu

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The Faculty of Law at the University of Zagreb is the leading Croatian academic institution, Institute for Social Policy- ISP, part of Department of Social Work, is the leading national institution dealing with social development issues. ISP provides interdisciplinary approach in teaching, researching and consultancy. ISP has a long experience of cooperation with relevant national and local stakeholders and also cooperation with colleagues from the region, Europe and USA. Through education, action oriented researches and publications, ISP influences public policies and provide usable knowledge for public policy making, monitoring and evaluation. From 1990 onwards, ISP has developed social policy as an academic discipline in Croatia. Around the ISP, from different field of social sciences, there is the network of prominent scientists and researchers with affinity to social policy. In education ISP organised the first postgraduate and PhD programme on social policy with the support of Ministry of Health and Social Care.

The most significant research projects in the past years are Strengthening civil society organisations as stakeholder of welfare mix (longitudinal research in partnership with the ministry of Health and Social Care and with support from Ministry of Science); Efficient and Democratic Multilevel Governance in Europe (CONNEX project, 6th Framework Programme);

Indicators of social cohesion and development of the Croatian social model (comprehensive research on trends and development of social policy at different levels); CIVICUS Index on civil society in Croatia (international comparative action oriented research on state of civil society). The Institute also worked on the Programme of social policy of the City of Zagreb (2009-2012) and on indicators of social issues in the City of Zagreb.

Gojko Bežovan

The head of the team will be Professor Gojko Bežovan, PhD, professor of social policy; director of master and PhD programme in Social policy and head of the ISP. He has published numerous articles, chapters of books, studies on social policy. He is a member of several expert groups dealing with social development.

The team will include Vlado Puljiz, founder of Croatian Journal of Social Policy and founder of social policy as academic discipline in Croatia. He issued numerous publications from this field. He is a member of more expert groups dealing with social reforms.

Contact information: Gojko Bezovan: ceraneo@zg.t-com.hr

Other members

Daniel Baturina

danijel.baturina@pravo.hr

Jelena Matan?evi?

jelena.matancevic@pravo.hr

www.unizg.hr

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The Centre de recherche et d’information sur la démocratie et l’autonomie (CRIDA, Research and Information Center on Democracy and Autonomy), based in Paris, was founded in 1984. The CRIDA gathers sociologists and economists who develop a contemporary socio-economic approach in four main fields of research: third sector, social enterprises and solidarity economy; personal services and grassroots’ initiatives; integration, labour market and social policies; and socio-economic systems and democracy. CRIDA is one of the founding members of the EMES European Research Network EMES.

CRIDA’s researchers have been involved in several European research projects in the fields of social policies, third sector, local initiatives and employment, etc. They coordinated the EMES child care comparative research project (TSFEPS) and participated in the EMES project on socio- economic performance of social enterprises in the field of work integration (PERSE). They also took part in the Third sector and European Policy(TSEP) and the Social Polis network on cities and social cohesion.

Laurent Fraisse

The researcher in charge, Laurent Fraisse, holds a post-graduate degree in economics (Paris I – Panthéon Sorbonne). He has worked as a researcher at the CRIDA since 1997 and has been a member of the Laboratoire Interdisciplinaire pour la Sociologie Economique (LISE / CNAM CNRS) since 2004. He is a member of the reading committee of the Revue Economie et Solidarité for Europe and was also one of the organisers of the first European conference jointly organised by the ISTR and EMES in 2005. He took part in several European research programmes on the socio-economic evaluation of services to persons and of social enterprises, on public policies and the third sector (TSEP), on the governance and coordination of social policies and policies fighting exclusion. He has actively participated to several European research projects in connected fields with the FP7.

He coordinated (2001-2004) the EMES European research on child care services and social cohesion (TSFEPS) in which, among others things, a the role and the involvement of municipal, non for profit and for profit organisation in the local governance of social services have been compared with regard to the participation quality and participation criteria. His publications include: Fraisse, L., Eme, B., “La gouvernance locale de la diversification des modes d’accueil : un enjeu de cohésion sociale”, Recherches et Prévisions, CNAF, n°80, june 2005.; Fraisse, L., “Les enjeux de l’action publique en faveur de l’économie sociale et solidaire”, in Carvalho de Franca, G., Laville, J-L, Action publique et économie solidaire, éditions Eres, May 2005; Fraisse, L., “Changement social”, in Laville J-L, Dictionnaire de l’Autre économie, Desclée de Brouwer, January 2005; Fraisse L. (2003), “Espaces publics de proximité, économie solidaire et démocratisation de l’économie”, in Revue Hermès, n°36, “Economie solidaire et Démocratie”, pp.137-147. · Fraisse L., Enjolras B., Laville J-L. (2000), “Between subsidiarity and social assistance: the French way towards activation”, in Loedemel I., Trickey H. (dir.), An Offer you can’t refuse, Policy Press, pp. 41-71.

Contact information: Laurent Fraisse fraisse@iresco.fr

Other members

Jean-Louis Laville

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The University of Warsaw, founded in 1816, is the largest university in Poland; 19 faculties, 25 interdepartmental study and research centres; 37 major fields and over 100 specializations in the Humanities, Earth, Social, and Natural Sciences; ca. 60,000 students, 3,000 academic staff, incl. 849 professors, ca. 2,800 other staff; studies at BA/BSc, MA/MSc, and doctoral level; degree programmes in English, courses in foreign languages, vocational training, E-learning, Summer Education. In 2007 UW – chosen by the European Commission out of 2.500 HEIs as one of 20 Erasmus Success Stories for its participation in the Programme in 2000-2006. The Institute for Social Studies (ISS) at the University of Warsaw is affiliated with the Institute for Social Research (University of Michigan, USA); an interdisciplinary research oriented institution focused on applied and cross-national studies, training for graduate students and scientists.

The research team took part in cross-national studies as head of the Polish team in: (1) the World Values Survey (in 83 countries) since 1980 -, (2) ”Functioning of local communities and local governments (USA, Poland, Sweden) 1976-1990, (3) the ”Polish-American study on ethical reasoning of councillors and civil servants of local governments”1993-1997, (4)”Gendering economic and political elites in 27 industrialized countries” 1996- 2004, (5)EC project:”Women in European Universities” (in 7 countries)2001-2003, (6)EC project: ”Work & Care” (in 6 countries)2005-008. She also was a member of (7) the EC expert group “Gender and Excellence” (evaluation of gender distribution of research grants given by national institutions) 2008. In Polish projects: (8) “Governance in Local Communities” 1976-1988; (9) “Social Map of Warsaw” (with focus on local governance) 2001-2003.

Renata Siemienska-Zochowska

Professor Renata Siemienska-Zochowska will be the head of the team. She is a full professor, past chair of the Dep. of Sociology of Education, UW, director of the Institute for Social Studies and head of the Center of Interdisciplinary Gender Studies, ISS UW and chairholder of the UNESCO Chair “Women, Society and Development”. Ex – president of INSTRAW. She took part in the research projects mentioned above and the National System of Monitoring of Equal Treatment of Women and Men, EU projects “Work and Care”, CINEFOGO project “Third Sector organizations” giving her broad experience in empirical sociological and political science studies. She organised many interdisciplinary conferences for academic and non-academic audience. Her publications include: Siemienska R., -1997, Ethical Reasoning in a Time of Revolution: A Study of Local Officials in Poland (co-authors D.Stewart, N.Sprinthall) Public Administration Review. Vol.57, no.5.445-453;- 1999, Women and Men in the Project of Reform. A Study of Gender Differences Among Local Officials in Two Provinces in Poland. Am. Review of Public Administration. vol.29. no.3. 225-239.(co -authors D. W. Stewart, N. Sprinthall). – 2001, Process of Democratization and Local Governance in Poland. In: A. Farazmand (ed.) Handbook of Comparative and Development of Public Administration (2d Edition), Marcel Dekker, Inc., 345-362; 2009, Gender: changing conception, changing reality in the context of social politics from the perspective of new EU members. W F.Brezzi, M. Ferrari-Occhionero, E. Strickland (eds.) Equal Opportunities and Human Rights. Rome: .Universita degli Studi di Roma “La Sapienza”.57-70.

Anna Domaradzka-Widla

Anna Domaradzka-Widla- Ph.D., sociologist, is assistant professor at the ISS UW. She took part in the international research projects e.g. WVS 2005 in Poland, National System of Monitoring of Equal Treatment of Women and Men, Demographic policy scenarios for Poland, CINEFOGO project “Third Sector Organizations facing turbulent environments”, EC project “Work and Care”. She specializes in gender and civil society issues.

Ilona Matysiak

Ilona Matysiak, Ph.D., sociologist, is assistant professor at the Robert B. Zajonc Institute for Social Studies, University of Warsaw, and the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, The Maria Grzegorzewska Academy of Special Education, Warsaw. She graduated in sociology, the Faculty of Philosophy and Sociology, University of Warsaw. She took part several international research projects, e.g. WORKCARE SYNERGIES (FP7), “ENRI-East. European, National and Regional Identities” (FP7-SSH collaborative research project). Her academic interests include gender, social capital and grassroots activities in the local contexts of urban and rural areas.

Contact information:

• Renata Siemienska
• Anna Domaradzka-Widla
• Ilona Matysiak – ilona.matysiak _at_ uw.edu.pl

Website: www.uw.edu.pl/en

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The School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research is one of the largest departments of its type in the UK. It is made up of three main groups of teaching staff: the Social Policy and Sociology group (which includes criminology), the Tizard Centre (for the study of learning disability and community care) and the European Centre for the Study of Migration and Social Care (for the study of migration, social care and mental health). Teaching takes place across a number of sites, including Canterbury, Medway, and Brussels. There are three main research units: the Centre for Health Service Studies, the European Institute of Social Services, and the Personal Social Services Research Unit (which houses the Kent Centre for Criminal Justice).

The School has a strong research culture, embracing the staff at these centres and those situated within the Department. The Social Policy and Sociology group, CHSS, PSSRU and EISS were awarded a 5* in the 2001 Research Assessment Exercise, with all staff submitted to the Social Policy panel. Only one other department in the country was awarded a 5* in Social Policy. In 2004/5 the 5* rating was raised to 6* under new HEFCE rules. The School’s research quality impacts on its teaching in two ways: teaching is by academics who are leaders in their fields and the School has more resources to put on its wide range of undergraduate and postgraduate programmes. External evaluations of teaching by the SPS group were ‘Excellent’ for Social Policy and 21/24 points for Sociology. SSPSSR also has a number of interesting MA and PhD programmes In recent years, SSPSSR has deliberately sought to strengthen the theoretical, applied and policy relevant components of its research portfolio. Inter alia, this has included recruiting leading academics in the comparative study of social policy, the European and gender dimensions of social policy, and third sector or civil society studies.

Dr. Jeremy Kendall

The researcher in charge will be Dr. Jeremy Kendall, senior lecturer in social policy at the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research, and a visiting associate at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU), London School of Economics and Political Science. He holds a master’s degree in health economics from the University of York and received his doctorate while based at the PSSRU site at the University of Kent. As Local Associate for the UK, he undertook all aspects (economic, historical, political and social dimensions) of Phases 1 and 2 of the Johns Hopkins Comparative Nonprofit Sector Project. He is a former editor of the journal Voluntas. He co- ordinated the European Commission 5th Framework Research, `Third Sector European Policy ? (TSEP) from 2002-2005 and is currently a partner in the CINEFOGO network of excellence (European Commission 6th Framework).

He has been recognised, by the European Commission amongst others, as one of the foremost experts on the third sector and social policy in the UK. His publications include The Handbook of Third Sector Policy in Europe: Multi-level Processes and Organised Civil Society (2008), The Voluntary Sector: Comparative Perspectives in the UK (2003), Third Sector Policy at the Cross-Roads (with Helmut Anheier, 2001) as well as various articles in journals such as the Journal of Social Policy, Voluntas and Public Administration.

Contact information:

• Jeremy Kendall
• Lavinia Mitton L.Mitton@kent.ac.uk

Other members

Lavinia Mitton

Dr Lavinia Mitton is a Lecturer in Social Policy at the University of Kent, UK. Prior to coming to the University of Kent she was a doctoral student at the London School of Economics and a researcher at the University of Cambridge. Broadly her interests lie in two areas: the British welfare state and ethnic minorities in the UK. She has written reports on social security benefit fraud for the Department of Work and Pensions and on financial exclusion for the Joseph Rowntree Foundation. Recently she has published on Black Africans in the UK. She is co-editor of a major social policy textbook for Oxford University Press.

Nadia Brookes

Nadia Brookes is a researcher at the Personal Social Services Research Unit (PSSRU) at the University of Kent, which is located within the School of Social Policy, Sociology and Social Research. Her recent research has included identifying the costs of criminal justice interventions for economic advisors within the UK’s Ministry of Justice and a project highlighting examples of innovative personalised services within social care for future in-depth research. She also coordinates service user involvement for a number of policy research units funded by England’s Department of Health. Prior to joining PSSRU, Nadia led a research unit at a London teaching hospital and was research manager at a not-for-profit centre specialising in innovation and outcomes in health, social care and criminal justice. She has also been employed in senior research roles within central and local government, leading on the evaluation of policy initiatives in connection with prostitution/sex work and also violence against women, focusing on the areas of education, health, and black and minority ethnic groups. Nadia has a postgraduate degree in social research and evaluation. Broadly, her research interests lie in the evaluation of health and social policy and innovation in service delivery.

www.kent.ac.uk

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Ersta Sköndal University College (ESUC) is a private university college. ESUC offer education at basic and advanced level in the caring sciences, social work, psychotherapy, deaconry, church music and theology. Research at ESUC is primarily centred around social and care sciences and research of civil society. The pioneering character in the Swedish context of some of this research has given the department a leading role in research on non-profit organisations and voluntary work in Sweden. The research department is multidisciplinary, such as social work, sociology, political science, theology, history, social anthropology, and social and economic geography.

The department endeavours to create and maintain good, long-term relations with research departments at other universities. At present there are collaborations with, among others, Stockholm University, Lund University, Uppsala University, Linköping University and Åbo Akademi University in Finland, Roskilde University in Denmark and University of California, Berkely, USA. Recent projects include Aspects of Citizenship. A longitudinal study on civic involvement (five population studies carried through from 1993 to 2009); State and Civil Society in Northern Europe: The Swedish Model Reconsidered; Mental health and self-help in civil society. A study on self-help and rehabilitation for people with mental illness in USA and Sweden; Civil Society in a Scandinavian Welfare State Context – Trends in Informal Care and Volunteering. The Department participated as a Swedish partner in The CINEFOGO Network of Excellence.

Marie Nordfeldt

The researcher in charge will be Ass. Prof. Marie Nordfeldt, at Dept. of Civil Society Studies at ESUC. She has a PhD in Social and Economic Geography from Uppsala University (Sweden). She works as a researcher and lecturer at Ersta Sköndal University College. Main focuses for her research have been relations between civil society organizations and public sector, especially at the local level, and issues of social exclusion and homelessness. She participated in an interdisciplinary collaborative research project – Third Sector European Policy (TSEP) – involving nine European countries. She has also participated in Nordic and Swedish research projects studying local welfare systems with comparative perspectives. For the moment, Marie Nordfeldt is project leader of a following up study of the Swedish “compact” that was agreed between the state and civil society organizations in 2008.

Contact information: Marie Nordfeldt. marie.nordfeldt@esh.se

Other members

Lars Svedberg

Lars Svedberg, Professor and Research Director, Dept. of Civil Society Studies at Ersta Sköndal University College. His main research fields are civil society, volunteering, citizenship and marginalisation. Recent publications: with Lars Trägårdh (in press) Social Rights vs Individual Rights. The Case of Sweden. In Evers, A. and Guillemard A-M. (eds.) Social Policy and Citizenship. Oxford: Oxford University Press. With Karin Gavelin, (2011). Estimating the Scope and Magnitude of Volunteerism Worldwide: A review of multinational data on volunteering.A UN-report Stockholm: Ersta Sköndal University College. With Lars Skov Henriksen (2010). Guest editors and authors of Volunteering and Social Activism: Moving Beyond the Traditional Divide? In Journal of Civil Society, v. 6, no 2. With Lars-Erik Olsson (2010). Civil Society and Welfare Provision in Sweden Is There Such a Thing? In Zimmer, A. and Evers, E. (eds.) Third Society Organizations Facing Turbulent Environments: Sports, Culture and Social Services in Germany, Italy, U.K:, Poland and Sweden. Baden-Baden: Nomos Verlag. lars.svedberg@esh.se

Ola Segnestam Larsson

Ola Segnestam Larsson has a PhD in organization and management from the School of Business and Economics, Åbo Akademi University. During the last years, Ola has worked with civil society research at the Institute for Civil Society Studies, Ersta Sköndal University College. ola.segnestam-larsson@esh.se

Anna Carrigan

Anna Carrigan is the research assistant of the Swedish team. She is a Master Student in Social Work at Ersta Sköndal University.

www.esh.se

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