A social contract is a political-theoretical concept which describes the (fictive) basic agreement between the members of a polity on the principles of this polity. There is a long legacy of various definitions of a social contract in political theory. There is also a long historical legacy of practiced social contracts, in countries inside and outside the European union. To grasp the impact of the social contract between individuals and groups as well as between the demos and the state across societies, it is crucial to understand the concept in plural and analyse how definitions and practises shape also the scope, implications, and resilience of social contracts in the face of societal transformations. This requires a high-level of context sensitivity and ability to shift between local, regional, national, and transnational settings. Based on the analyses of the limitations of, and challenges to the social contracts in political theorising and practices, CO3 aims at developing and promoting a more democratic, more inclusive and more open model of social contracts, which manifest political and social resilience in the face of major societal challenges, crises, and anti-democratic tendencies. Drawing from 8 empirical case studies in EU member states, and in 3 non-member states, CO3 researchers safeguards and mechanisms for resilient social contracts overtime. While the theoretical ambition of the CO3 project is to analyse how the contemporary theories of the social contract contribute to our understanding of the social contracts in the current crises-driven European political environment, the empirical ambition is to investigate contradictions and tensions between practices, narratives and lived experiences in social contracts across EUrope through concrete cases. As a result, CO3 generates evidence-based knowledge on the safeguards and mechanisms for promoting resilient social contracts, which support citizen involvement and democracy across EUrope.

LEGITIMULT assesses the impact of the measures taken by various international, national and subnational governments on multilevel institutions and intergovernmental relations in the wake of the Covid-19 pandemic. The project analyzes the effect of these measures on democratic governance, highlighting to what extent multilevel governance influences their impact on democracy, favoring a model of legitimate crisis management. It assesses all measures taken by 31 European countries in relation to their impact on multilevel governance through the creation of a new dataset highlighting how these procedures link to multiple orders of governance – WHO and EU above the states, and regional and local governments below the national level. The impact of these measures is analyzed through the lens of a variety of dimensions that characterize functional democratic governance (Rule of Law and Democratic Participation; Human and Minority Rights; Trust; Economic Sustainability). LEGITIMULT qualifies the different trade-offs required within and across these dimensions in order to effectively and quickly deal with a crisis such as Covid-19, while at the same time maintaining a level of democratic governance and ensuring that any limitations to democratic standards are limited. These final trade-offs within and between the different dimensions of democratic governance in crisis management are gathered in a set of policy recommendations, tailored to different recipients, and developed through extensive consultation with stakeholder groups throughout the project. Citizens, policy makers and practitioners are involved in the experimental phase of the project, where interactive learning and practical tools are tested but also co-designed and co-refined with relevant stakeholders in a participatory way. Policy recommendations and practical tools merge into a toolkit for legitimate crisis management, ready for use in possible future crises.

MEDIADELCOM endeavours to contribute to the enhancement of European integration, social cohesion and consequently – Europeanization. The popularity of ultra-right and populist political forces in European societies demonstrate that the unity of European nations and their common goals are not self-evident. Informed decision making in contemporary democratic societies is being challenged. MEDIADELCOM consortium argues that European political and cultural spaces evolve best if specific policies enhance the conditions for deliberative communication. The Consortium will work out a methodology enabling the assessment and forecast of the risks and opportunities for deliberative communication emerging in the process of media transformation in 2000-2020. There is no holistic approach to media related Risks and Opportunities (ROs); media studies and data are dispersed, restricting the evaluation of ROs for deliberative communication in European countries; there are no evidence-based holistic scenarios for prognosing media development in European societies. The overall objective of MEDIADELCOM is to develop a diagnostic tool for policy makers, educators, media critical bodies and institutions, as well as for media experts and journalists, which enables the provision of holistic assessment of risks and opportunities concerning deliberative communication and consequently social cohesion in Europe. We will: 1) develop a model for holistic analysis of the ROs emerging within the process of media transformation in Europe; 2) assess the sufficiency of existing research and data necessary for making knowledge based forecasts about European media landscape development trends; 3) generate a novel method, based on motivational modelling and agent-based simulation for outlining scenarios to predict media related ROs. By assembling and synthesizing existing dispersed research, and modelling multiple scenarios will create an instrument for media risk prediction and management.

The unemployment rate for youth in the EU under the age of 25 is at staggering 22.9%. Such extreme unemployment has a negative effect on their future employability and self-esteem, increasing their risk of poverty, deskilling and social exclusion. It affects the role the young people have in the society and presents an economic burden on state finances, producing a negative effect on economic growth and productivity. As one of the key issues in the EU, youth unemployment is often discussed without sufficient participation of the young people themselves, which adds to the feeling among the youth that their situation is given, and that the causes and the scale of the problem are too great and too far removed from their sphere of influence. This feeling leads to a loss of motivation and active participation in the society, further increasing the threat of cultural, economic and social exclusion.Through an innovative training program in mobile journalism, the project from the beginning has been trying to contribute to the empowerment and active citizenship of young people, increasing their capacity for political and social participation. Through the creation of the European Youth News Exchange (Y-NEX) service, the project enables young people to connect with the general public, express their opinion and have an influence on the political and social processes affecting their lives. The first project objective was to develop a new training program in mobile journalism and MOOC in mobile journalism.The MOJO program consist of six modules: 1) Media Literacy and Human Rights, 2) Mobile Journalism Technology, 3) Mobile Journalism Storytelling, 4) Mobile Journalism Production, 5) Intellectual Property Rights, 6) Digital Entrepreneurship. Each module present a 16-20 hour learner workload in blended learning format, with maximum total program duration of 120 hours. The second project objective was developing the European Youth News Exchange (Y-NEX) as a service which draw on the news-gathering and production resources of all the youth trained in mobile journalism, and is used for dissemination and exchange of news in text, photo, audio and video formats - created by the youth, for the youth. The first project target group of the project includes youth workers and staff active in education, which were trained as trainers and act as multipliers in youth empowerment.The second project target group includes high-school pupils, students, trainees, volunteers and unemployed young people who were trained in mobile journalism. The project aims at training 18 trainers who have been included in pilot the mobile journalism program with 150 youth participants in partner countries. The project consortium has been formed by civil, private and public sector organizations from Croatia, Belgium, Ireland and Spain, including a national public broadcaster and three higher education institutions. As such it was good combination of experience in education and training, youth-work, project management, media and information literacy, audio-visual production, information and communication technologies and cross-media publishing. The planned duration of the project was 24 months. The whole project has been implemented in 3 stages.Stage 1 focused on the production of the Mobile Journalism Curriculum.Stage 2 was dedicated to training the trainers and the production of the Mobile Journalism MOOC. Stage 3 focused on launching the Y-NEX service and piloting the program with the youth, who were included in news production and dissemination through the Y-NEX service and social media as the final learning outcome. Implementation of the project empowered young people for participation in society and active citizenship. The developed training program is being used by the project partners in their regular training activities, while the developed MOOC is available to the general public, both promoting and fostering citizen journalism. The new Y-NEX service enabled youth to create, publish and disseminate news, providing an open service for citizen journalism and cultural exchange. After the project implementation is completed and the funding from the Agency for Mobility and EU Programmes ends, all three intellectual outputs will continue to exist and be functional. The promotion of European Youth News Exchange was through a final project conference in Croatia with three multiplier events in Belgium, Ireland and Spain. These forums hosted more then 155 participants (due to approved budget for event organisation) interested in mobile journalism but also exploitation of MOOC and the European Youth News Exchange. Youth/student media and national public broadcasting services in project countries were included in dissemination of the project results, as well as distribution through the European Broadcasting Union’s Eurovision network and European Association of Regional Television, reaching millions of viewers throughout the EU.