SWINS introduces an impact oriented framework to assess the transformative returns of investment in social policies and services, combining conceptual advances with methodological innovation. The added value of the project approach rests on three pillars:
- An integrated methodological toolkit, which allows us to capture both individual behaviours and systemic outcomes, connecting micro-level mechanisms to macroeconomic outcomes.
- An assessment of investment performance that goes beyond traditional economic metrics, including outcomes related to the realization of rights and sustainable and inclusive well-being, by navigating three overlapping logics (productivity and competitiveness, sustainability and inclusive wellbeing, rights-based approach).
- Practical tools for policymakers, in particular policy briefs and an interactive online policy simulator to enable policymakers and stakeholders to explore tradeoffs, test policy options, and identify synergies between social, economic, and environmental returns of investing in social policies and services.
Taken together, these contributions make SWINS not only a research project but a policy-oriented debate platform. By integrating advanced modelling with a capability-based understanding of rights and opportunities, SWINS provides new ways to value social policies and services as a strategic asset of Europe’s present and future.
Social services and policies are not compensatory expenditures, but strategic assets that enhance a society’s ability to navigate uncertainty.
4 key questions to navigate the EU future
01.
How can we conceptualize and measure social policies and services as strategic assets for long-term resilience, rather than compensatory expenses?
Current EU governance frameworks still rely mainly on GDP growth and fiscal constraints, undervaluing the long-term contribution of social services to cohesion, resilience and growth.
SWINS aims to move beyond efficiency and cost-containment by developing measurement tools that show how services sustain productivity, rights, equality, and ecological sustainability across the life course. In practice, this means to operationalise different metrics to link public investment, changes in micro level behaviours and outcomes and systemic impacts through microsimulations, and agent-based models.
02.
Which social investments are essential to resilience, making human and social capital central to ISW transition?
Structural transformation will happen regardless of policy choices, but our societal ability to navigate it depends on investing in
the right mix of services and policies. SWINS highlights how investing in different domains (care, health, ALMP, education) by using mixes of different tools (in-cash and in-kind, conditional and unconditional), can allow to
go beyond trade-offs between productivity, sustainability, and rights, by positioning human and social capital at the heart of Europe’s competitiveness and sustainable transition strategies.
03.
How can we go beyond the false dichotomy between activation and protection?
Debates on welfare have often framed activation and protection as mutually exclusive goals for social policies and services, the former associated with labour market participation and individual responsibility, the latter with assistance and social security. This false dichotomy has often been reinforced by narratives that praise “good” services and policies – those focused on activation – while dismissing “old” or “bad” ones centered on assistance and protection. In SWINS, we move beyond this divide by asking whether and how optimal policy mixes can instead unlock societies’ transformative potential while safeguarding wellbeing.
04.
How can our methodologies trace causal mechanisms, making the link between welfare configurations, individual behaviours and cumulative long-term returns visible and actionable?
Short termism often hides the systemic impact of social services. SWINS applies the Coleman boat framework and the life-course multiplier to connect macro-level welfare configurations with individual behaviours and cumulative long-term returns. By integrating microsimulations, agent based models, and qualitative evidence, the project makes these causal mechanisms visible and usable, building dashboards and scenarios that help policymakers move from abstract principles to evidence-based strategies. This approach strengthens a governance culture oriented toward resilience and sustainable wellbeing, showing social services as infrastructures that generate enduring societal value.
These key questions are part of the Policy Brief “SOCIAL SERVICES AND POLICIES AS KEY ASSETS FOR THE EU FUTURE“