:: 
8 Socioeconomic Sciences & Humanities
CINEFOGO Network Conference on Social Rights, Active Citizenship and Governance in EU on 16-18Mar09 in BXL
Submitted by Editor on Tue, 2008-10-21 08:13.The conference will focus on two important topics relevant for all citizens of Europe as well as all European policy makers:
- Social rights and social reality in the European Union
- Active citizenship and governance.
The conference will present CINEFOGO Network findings on the relationships among citizens, NGOs, civil servants and politicians at the European and national levels. It will identify different roles of various actors and institutions, the ways they are (or are not) involved in the decision making processes, and how their actions influence the changing human living conditions – including accessibility of social rights to European citizens.
Governance at the EU level has a big impact the on daily life and working conditions of the Europeans. However, the citizens of Europe mostly do not understand the complexities of EU policy making. Their active participation at various levels of governance differs from one country to another and from agenda to agenda, depending on uneven strengths of particular civil societies, different civic cultures, and emerging new modes of cooperation between private and public actors. There is an important role of intermediate organizations, such as NGOs and the media in nurturing conditions for the activation of European citizens. In general, active citizens’ participation is still a feeble resource in the EU decision making processes.
- Login or register to post comments
- Read more
- Calendar
- eSociability calendar
Social Spaces for Research and Innovation Zaragoza, Spain, 9th-10th September 2008
Submitted by ferran on Tue, 2008-08-19 17:56.Social Spaces for Research and Innovation Zaragoza, Spain, 9th-10th September 2008
Nowadays there are many EU initiatives launched in different frameworks as the 7th Framework Programme for Research and Technological Development, the 4th Rural Development Programme, and the Fourth Regional Cooperation Programme INTERREG. They all contribute to the Lisbon Strategy promoting research, rural development and territorial cooperation respectively. As a result, a more competitive EU is expected based on knowledge society with full inclusion among people and territories.Civil society groups are created in all programs very much in line with EU policies, they also contribute to the bottom-up establishment of new policies and to the update of strategic programmes. Among them, Local Action Groups (LAG) focussed on Rural Development, Living Labs focussed both on R&D and regional cooperation, and an endless number of municipalities and public entities interested on wealth creation improving the citizen's quality of life. However, all these groups do not sufficiently exchange information and do not network adequately, lacking thus a common strategy to exploit synergies for achieving sustainability and larger impact. This is indeed needed if active communities or "Social Spaces for Research and Innovation" SSRI are to be created.
Despite the remarkable efforts and achieved results of both the European and the National technological platforms, there is still a lot of work to be done for full implementation into the society, in general, and, particularly, into excluded civil groups such as elderly or handicapped people in rural and urban communities.
WEKOMS