The Rise project: Co-Designing Engaged Research Capacities in the Social Economy

RISE (Engaged Research in the Social Economy) is a new Erasmus+ project that aims to build the skills of social economy organisations to partner in projects with research institutes. The objective is to encourage more Engaged Research projects, a practice that creates socially impactful initiatives through active collaboration between researchers and communities. The project is led by a consortium of four partners, including The Wheel (project coordinators, Ireland), Diesis Network (Belgium), European Citizen Science Association ECSA (Germany), and Science for Change (Spain).  The project brought researchers and other key stakeholders across Europe in a series of workshops to identify the main reasons preventing greater involvement in Engaged Research practices. These workshops highlighted systemic barriers and the most silent challenges that SEOs face and paved the way for the development of a tailored training programme enabling SEOs to become “research-ready”.  

RISE training opportunity

The project will pilot and refine the co-created training programme through two piloting rounds in autumn 2025 and spring 2026, with the aim to train 120 SEOs across the consortium.  The training aims to equip SEOs with the tools and knowledge necessary to design, manage, and evaluate Engaged Research projects and thus collaborate with researchers as equal partners. By embedding Engaged Research skills into their strategies, SEOs can shape evidence that matters – to their communities and policymakers alike.  

If you were interested in participating in the pilot trainings, you can sign up here.  For more information about the project, visit https://www.engaged-rise.eu/ or the project.

Data2Action Marie Curie Doctoral Network

Data2Action is the working name of an ambitious new research and development network that will show social pioneers how to use data science and AI for public good.

Part of the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions (MSCA) doctoral networks, Data2Action is funded by Horizon Europe and UK Research and Innovation (UKRI). Its purpose is to train a cohort of PhD fellows to find the most effective, ethical and responsible ways to integrate data science and artificial intelligence (AI) with social innovation. Politecnico di Milano will be selecting 3 PhD fellows and the other 10 scholarships are offered by other partner universities and research centres. You can check them out at https://www.data2action.eu/.