Helvetas joins Horizon Europe project to strengthen European social data
Helvetas is part of the consortium led by the European Social Survey (ESS ERIC), which has been awarded €3.2m by the European Commission to consolidate, modernize and future-proof ESS’s research infrastructure.
The work will include the introduction of new technologies, including artificial intelligence (AI) tools, as well as efforts to expand its membership among European Union (EU) Member States and candidate countries.
ESS-Innovate – part of the European Commission’s Horizon Europe funding programme – is a two-and-a-half-year project due to begin on 1 June 2026. Led by ESS ERIC, the project will enhance the sustainability of the ESS infrastructure to fully realise the benefits of its recent transition in data collection methods. The project will also see three national teams – Germany, the Netherlands and Serbia – join the ESS self-completion panel survey (CRONOS) for the first time. The ESS currently has the highest number of members (30) among the 32 European Research Infrastructure Consortiums (ERICs) but does not yet have full coverage across the EU. ESS-Innovate will help ESS address this gap through new membership development activities led by ambassadors, targeting EU Member States not currently involved in the ESS, as well as EU candidate countries.
Role of Helvetas
Helvetas in Eastern Europe will lead on the creation of national coordination teams to support funding applications, organise events, and create promotional campaigns in target countries. A major ESS conference – Europe past, present and future: the ESS addressing key citizen challenges – will be held in Brussels, Belgium, in 2028. The main aim of the conference is to strengthen the visibility and use of ESS data and resources among EU policymakers and stakeholders. The results of a new impact study commissioned via ESS-Innovate will be presented at the conference and will provide evidence of impact to support other membership development activities.
Partner organizations
The project involves six ESS Core Scientific Team (CST) members: ESS ERIC HQ at City St George’s, University of London (UK); Centerdata (Netherlands); GESIS – Leibniz Institute for the Social Sciences (Germany); Sikt – Norwegian Agency for Shared Services in Education and Research (Norway); Universitat Pompeu Fabra (Spain); and the University of Essex (UK). There are also five beneficiaries taking part in ESS-Innovate: Helvetas – Swiss development organisation (Switzerland); Institute of Social Sciences (Serbia); Maria Curie-Skłodowska University (Poland); Polish Academy of Sciences (IFIS PAN, Poland); and Tilburg University (Netherlands). The Coordinator of ESS-Innovate is ESS ERIC Director Professor Rory Fitzgerald, and the main point of contact for the project is Niccolò Ghirelli (Deputy Coordinator). “ESS-Innovate will enable the integration of new technologies to support our national teams in implementing the survey, including new in-house AI tools to assist them in their tasks. We will focus on increasing participation by encouraging EU Member States and candidate countries to join our survey, and on adding three new ESS countries to our self-completion panel survey (CRONOS),” said Professor Rory Fitzgerald.
