EU-Wide Advantages & Opportunities for the project **“Gender differences in career trajectories of parents and their implications for gender equality and family well-being”** (HORIZON-CL2-2025-02-TRANSFO-04-two-stage)

Executive Summary

This Horizon Europe RIA lump-sum call offers a unique EU-level platform to investigate and address parent-related gender gaps. Operating at Union scale multiplies impact, leverages comparative diversity, and unlocks policy influence that no single Member State (MS) could achieve alone.

1. Single Market Access

• Reach 450 + million citizens, 200 + million workers and 23 + million SMEs, ensuring wide dissemination of evidence-based policy options.

• Enable pan-EU piloting of workplace interventions (e.g., flexible work, parental leave top-ups) across different legal, cultural and corporate contexts, generating robust data for scalability.

• Support companies in multiple MS to benchmark and certify family-friendly practices, creating new service markets for equality consultancies and HR tech providers.

2. Cross-Border Collaboration & Knowledge Exchange

• Build transnational consortia combining Nordic best practice on leave schemes, Southern expertise on informal care, Central-Eastern insights on transition economies, and Western experience in large multinationals.

• Pool longitudinal administrative registers (e.g., Scandinavian population data, German social insurance files, French DADS) with EU-wide surveys (EU-LFS, SHARE, SILC) to create a pan-European evidence base otherwise impossible to assemble.

• Forge partnerships with social partners (ETUC, BusinessEurope), NGOs (COFACE Families Europe), and EU Agencies (Eurofound, EIGE) for validation and dissemination.

3. Alignment with Key EU Strategies

• European Pillar of Social Rights (Principles 2, 9, 11): evidence for closing gender pay gaps and promoting work-life balance.

• Work-Life Balance Directive (2019/1158) implementation support and potential refinement.

• Child Guarantee (2021): data on early childhood education & care (ECEC) quality, affordability and gender impacts.

• Digital Decade & EU Care Strategy: inputs on telework and digital workplace cultures.

• Green Deal Just Transition: gender-sensitive labour transitions in climate-affected sectors.

4. Regulatory Harmonisation Benefits

• Comparative evaluation of diverse parental leave regimes, tax-benefit systems and childcare regulations leads to policy templates that can inspire EU directives or soft-law instruments.

• Evidence can underpin upward convergence targets (e.g., minimum paternity leave length, pay-transparency standards).

• Identifies administrative data gaps and common indicators, supporting Eurostat and EIGE harmonisation efforts.

5. Access to the EU Innovation Ecosystem

• Link with European Research Infrastructures (CESSDA, ESS ERIC, SHARE ERIC) via EOSC for FAIR data storage and advanced analytics.

• Collaborate with Digital Europe-funded data spaces (Common European Data Space for Skills & Talent) for real-time labour market insights.

• Engage Horizon EIT Culture & Creativity KIC for innovative dissemination (interactive policy dashboards, immersive storytelling).

6. Funding Synergies

• Combine Horizon lump-sum with ESF+ programmes (e.g., Equality, Rights & Gender strand) for pilot roll-outs in disadvantaged regions.

• Align with Erasmus+ KA2 for curriculum development on gender-sensitive HR management.

• Leverage InvestEU Social Impact products for scaling family-friendly business models.

• Complement Citizens, Equality, Rights and Values (CERV) projects tackling gender stereotypes.

7. Scale & Impact Potential

• Generate EU-level cost-benefit models quantifying economic gains from closing child/motherhood penalties—powerful advocacy for Council & EP negotiations.

• Deliver policy blueprints adaptable across 27 MS, EEA & candidate countries, accelerating uptake.

• Foster new EU-wide accreditation (e.g., “Family-Smart Employer” label) boosting corporate branding and labour mobility.

• Contribute to EU Social Scoreboard indicators, influencing Semester country recommendations.

8. Strategic Recommendations for Applicants

1. Form a consortium covering at least 10 MS + associated countries to maximise diversity and eligibility points.

2. Integrate micro- (household), meso- (firm) and macro-level (policy) analyses to fit call’s intersectional & multi-method expectations.

3. Commit to EOSC-compliant FAIR data management and open-access publication to score high on excellence & impact.

4. Budget for policy labs with DG EMPL, DG JUST, EIGE and Eurofound to ensure actionable outputs.

5. Prepare a Sustainability Plan (post-grant) linking results to ESF+ calls and corporate adoption, demonstrating long-term EU value.

9. Conclusion

Operating at EU scale transforms this research from academic exercise into a Union-wide lever for gender equality, family well-being and inclusive economic growth. The Horizon framework amplifies reach, credibility and integration—delivering strategic advantage unattainable in purely national projects.