The INTEGRED research project, coordinated by Antoni Verger, received funding in the 2025 call of the Horizon Europe Cluster 2, alongside four other research projects in which the UAB is involved. The University will receive a total of 1.65 million euros under this call.
Five research projects with the involvement of the UAB, one of them coordinated by the University, have obtained funding from the European Union's Horizon Europe Cluster 2 Culture, Creativity and Inclusive Society call.
Antoni Verger, lecturer in the Department of Sociology, will coordinate the project INTEGRED (An Integrative Approach to the Production, Use and Governance of Evidence in European Education), within the framework of the Institute of Government and Public Policy (IGOP-UAB). INTEGRED aims to transform how evidence is produced, used, and governed in European education systems by co-developing and institutionalising an Integrative Evaluation Framework (IEF). The project responds to the need for robust and context-sensitive evaluations while also strengthening the capacity to identify middle-range theories that enable findings to be generalised beyond specific contexts. Current evaluation approaches are fragmented. Counterfactual methods offer rigour but limited generalisability, while theory-based approaches provide contextual insights but face challenges with causal attribution. INTEGRED bridges this divide by combining multiple causal logics within a pluralist framework adaptable to diverse governance settings.
The IEF will be piloted in six countries, each centred on preventive measures such as delayed tracking, tutoring, and inclusive teaching. Co-created with policymakers and practitioners, these pilots will test and refine the framework's methodological innovations while embedding evaluation into policy cycles. In parallel, the project will contribute to diagnosing and strengthening institutional capacity for policy evaluation and evidence uptake, developing a European blueprint for the good governance of evidence.
Led by an interdisciplinary consortium, INTEGRED will include the involvement of UAB lecturers Adrián Zancajo, Clara Fontdevila and Tomás Esper. It will generate impact across three domains. In science, by advancing an evaluation approach that brings together different logics of causation and combines rigour with contextual relevance. In policy, by enhancing evaluation capacity and fostering sustainable evidence cultures. In society, by informing preventive policies that promote equity, inclusion, and system resilience.
Another project also receiving funding under the 2025 call is WELFAIR (Intergenerational Fairness and the Welfare State in the Age of Inequality, Demographic Transformation, and Technological Change), also managed by the IGOP-UAB and whose principal investigator is Margarita Leon, from the Department of Political Science and Public Law. The project addresses the urgent challenge of intergenerational fairness (IF) in a Europe shaped by inequality, technological disruption and demographic change.
The project VOPUS (Virtual world opera for participation, unity, and social cohesion) with call number 101287909 is led by UAB lecturer Celina Navarro Bosch, from the Department of Audiovisual Communication and Advertising, and Pilar Orero, from the Department of Translation and Interpreting and East Asian Studies. The project investigates the long-term impacts on culture when citizens spend more time in virtual worlds.
In third place, FAIRGENs (Shaping Fair and Viable Intergenerational Policies for the Future), with lecturer Guadalupe Souto, from the Department of Applied Economics as principal investigator, addresses the challenge of intergenerational fairness in the context of demographic change and socio-economic transformation in Europe.
Lastly, the UAB takes part as a beneficiary partner in the co-funded European Partnership for Resilient Cultural Heritage (RCH), with lecturer Raquel Piquè, from the Department of Prehistory, as PI of the UAB. Pending the signature of the funding agreement, the project is an initiative that will mark the roadmap for research and innovation in European cultural heritage over the next 10 years and will mobilise nearly €200M to develop and promote the adaptation, preservation and study of cultural heritage towards climate change, through dissemination and capacity-building activities, innovative solutions, evaluation systems, adaptation and risk mitigation strategies, and management models, to transmit cultural heritage to future generations.
