In developing its response to the challenges arising throughout Europe from the economic crises, the European Commission launched its Europe 2020 Strategy. This sets out the Commission's key priorities in terms of smart, sustainable and inclusive growth, and provides a framework for Member States' policy responses and the implementation of structural reforms.

This project has been commissioned to:

• provide the Commission with a proposal for an economic model or framework to help rank the urgency of action in key employment policy areas at the Member State and EU level; and
• provide the Commission with a proposal for a transparent quantitative and qualitative assessment methodology to evaluate and determine Members State and EU progress made within the employment field of the new EU2020 strategy.

The research questions developed to address these objectives will be applied to two main policy areas - employment and social policy; and education and training policy.

A multidisciplinary mix of methodology will be used during the project, combining both quantitative and qualitative elements, and drawing from expertise in a series of disciplines, including: economics, econometrics, statistics, sociology, and policy analysis.

The project is being undertaken by a consortium led by RAND Europe, in collaboration with IER and Cambridge Econometrics.

Project duration:
May 2011 - March 2012

Project Team:

Professor Rob Wilson (Principal Investigator)

Terence Hogarth

Lynn Gambin

Kari Alho, Honorary Fellow of IER, ETLA

Partners:
Cambridge Econometrics

Sponsor:
European Commission via RAND Europe Cambridge Ltd