EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for the call "Tackling gender-based violence in different social and economic spheres" (HORIZON-CL2-2025-01-TRANSFO-01)

1. Single Market Access – 450+ million citizens

• Uniform evidence base: A pan-EU dataset on GBV (including tech-facilitated abuse) creates a unique comparative asset that is instantly relevant for all 27 Member States and associated countries.

• Market for solutions & services: Outputs such as AI-driven detection tools, consent education packages, or workplace audit methodologies can be commercialised or licensed in every EU country without additional regulatory approval, leveraging the free movement of goods and services.

• Public-sector uptake: Harmonised indicators make it easier for EU-level agencies (e.g. EIGE, Eurofound) and national authorities to procure and mainstream project results.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Multinational consortia: Horizon rules require at least three independent entities from three different Member/Associated States, guaranteeing diverse legal, cultural and sectoral perspectives on GBV.

• Living labs across contexts: Compare interventions in Nordic tele-work settings, Southern European hospitality sectors and Central-Eastern transport hubs, generating robust, transferable practices.

• Shared infrastructures: Use CESSDA archives, EOSC resources and national statistical offices to co-create FAIR data sets that no single country could build alone.

3. Alignment with EU Policy Agendas

• Union of Equality strategies: Directly underpins the Gender Equality Strategy, EU Directive on Combatting Violence against Women, Istanbul Convention accession and ILO C190 implementation.

• Digital Europe & AI Act: Research on deep-fakes and online harassment feeds into trustworthy-AI requirements and the Digital Services Act obligations for platforms.

• European Pillar of Social Rights: Evidence on safe workplaces and social dialogue supports the Pillar’s target of ‘zero tolerance’ for violence and harassment.

• Green & Just Transition: Safe, inclusive workplaces foster labour-market participation, critical for a socially fair Green Deal.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Comparable indicators: Developing EU-wide measurement tools helps Member States fulfil new Directive reporting duties without reinventing national systems.

• Model clauses & codes: Outputs can be translated into collective-agreement clauses, sport federation rules or platform governance standards applicable EU-wide.

• Legal test-beds: Findings inform the Commission’s monitoring of the Violence-against-Women Directive transposition, easing convergence and reducing compliance costs for employers.

5. Access to Europe’s Innovation Ecosystem

• Synergy with research infrastructures: Tap into distributed social-science data nodes (CESSDA, SHARE, European Social Survey) and technology test facilities (AI4EU).

• SSH–STEM integration: Combine gender studies, criminology, labour economics, computer science and sports medicine—an integration fostered by Horizon evaluation criteria.

• Talent mobility: Marie Skłodowska-Curie fellows and ERC grantees can be seconded to the project, boosting excellence and visibility.

6. Funding Synergies & Leveraging Effect

• CERV–DAPHNE strand: Pilot prevention programmes financed by CERV can serve as demonstration sites; Horizon results provide the evidence base for their scale-up.

• ESF+ & ERDF: Member States can embed validated GBV interventions in ESF+ operational programmes (e.g. training labour-inspectors) or ERDF smart-specialisation projects (e.g. AI safety analytics).

• Digital Europe Programme: Interoperability specifications for online-platform monitoring tools can be co-funded for deployment under DIGITAL-EUROHPC calls.

• EIC Pathways: Market-ready tech (e.g. real-time harassment detection software for sports venues) can later seek EIC Transition/Accelerator funding.

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• Pan-European benchmarks: Harmonised GBV prevalence indicators enable the Commission to set quantitative targets (similar to the Gender Equality Index), amplifying policy traction.

• Replicability toolkit: Multilingual training modules and policy roadmaps accelerate roll-out from pilot countries to the rest of Europe.

• Economic impact: Even a 1 % reduction in GBV-related absenteeism across the EU labour force could save billions in productivity losses, creating a clear cost-benefit narrative for adoption.

• Global leadership: A consolidated EU dataset and evidence-based interventions position Europe as the reference point for UN Women, ILO and Council of Europe initiatives, opening avenues for external-action funding (NDICI, IPA III) and international standard-setting.

8. Strategic Value of Operating at EU Scale vs National Level

• Critical mass of data: Only EU-wide pooling delivers statistically robust insights on intersectionality (e.g. migrant women in platform work) that national samples cannot capture.

• Transnational harm, transnational solutions: Online GBV and cross-border labour mobility make purely national interventions ineffective; EU-level projects match the problem’s geography.

• Cost efficiency: Single methodology development avoids parallel national spending and reduces administrative burden for companies operating in multiple Member States.

• Policy coherence: Research findings feed directly into Commission impact assessments and delegated acts, ensuring swift translation into binding or soft-law instruments across 27 jurisdictions.

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Bottom line: The Horizon lump-sum call offers a unique springboard to create the first truly European evidence base and toolbox against gender-based violence. By leveraging the Single Market, harmonised regulation, cutting-edge research infrastructures and multiple EU funding channels, projects can achieve transformative impact that individual Member States could neither finance nor scale alone.