European Research Project, READJUST, Launches to Tackle Inequalities in Europe’s Green and Digital Future
Multi-million Euro research initiative investigates policies and develops solutions to mitigate unintended negative consequences of the twin transition.
Source : Press Release READJUST, 11 March 2024
Newly launched EU-funded research project
As Europe embraces a greener and more digital future, concerns are growing that these fundamental shifts could exacerbate existing inequalities or create new ones.
The policies driving this twin transition have already led to unforeseen disparities, particularly affecting vulnerable social groups and regions.
For the transition to be successful, however, it must be fair and inclusive.
The newly launched EU-funded research project READJUST aims to address these issues. It will investigate, analyse, and propose concrete solutions to the inequalities arising from the EU's green and digital transitions.
READJUST is committed to ensuring equitable access to the benefits of these transitions and aims to provide policymakers with the necessary tools and insights to mitigate potential negative impacts.
The project places particular emphasis on the mobility and agri-food sectors due to their environmental impact, relevance to everyday life, and potential for equitable change.
To achieve these goals, the eight multidisciplinary READJUST partners are supported by the European Research Executive Agency (REA) with a budget of EUR 2.9 million over three and a half years.
“With READJUST, we recognise the vital importance of both digital and environmental transformation but also seek to ensure the twin transition benefits all parts of society and economy equally. To this end, READJUST is actively engaging with diverse stakeholders and pays special attention to vulnerable groups to ensure that the perspectives and needs of all are considered in the development of fairer and more just transition policies. ”
No winners and losers division
The European Union's commitment to sustainability and digitalisation is crucial for addressing climate change and fostering economic innovation.
However, policies in these fields can inadvertently exacerbate inequality, creating a divide between "winners" and "losers" across sectors like the labour market, education, and healthcare.
READJUST Observatory: Providing Insights, Enabling Equality
READJUST employs a comprehensive four-step approach to achieve this:
- (1) Identifying and tracking existing policies and inequalities;
- (2) Assessing socio-technical transition processes;
- (3) Co-creating and testing new policy measures and developed tools;
- (4) Reflecting and addressing issues by evaluating policy recommendations and proposing evidence-based revisions for optimal equality outcomes.
To kickstart these activities, the READJUST project partners did meet in Delft, The Netherlands, from 11 until 12 March 2024.
READJUST is developing concrete inequality indicators to track both drivers of inequality and equality-enabling factors.
To account for the multidimensional complexity of the twin transition and to study the root causes of inequalities in-depth, READJUST intends to extend the EU's “Multidimensional Inequality Monitoring Framework” (MIMF) by considering both horizontal (e.g. income, ethnicity, gender aspects, and health) and spatial (global, national, regional and local) inequality factors.
The main findings of READJUST will underpin an innovative Observatory for policymakers.
This Observatory is envisioned to feature a policy tracker tool, a long-term collection of best practices, a clear policy roadmap, and a co-creation framework and self-assessment tool to evaluate the potential impact of new policies on equality before implementation.
