The Bridge Building Summer School on social welfare was a response to the need for capacity building from the 2016 Launch event 'Building Bridges in Social Welfare Policy in Eastern Europe' (19 September 2016 in Vienna) regarding joint research, project acquisition and project development, especially, in the areas of youth unemployment, labour market policy, healthy and active ageing and demographic change.

The so-called ‘Industry 4.0’ is regarded as the 4th industrial revolution and has enormous impacts on the world of work. It influences qualification needs, work organisation, the quality of work, and, in more general, the collaboration between human and technology. The course covered major work-related topics during its seven training modules such as new forms of work organisation, changes/needs for ‘learning & skills’, diversity, gender and the ageing of work force.

We analyse issues related to living conditions and its various determinants and aspects such as income, wealth, poverty, taxes and benefits, consumption, access to health, long-term care and other services, time use, social mobility, social inclusion and social participation. It helps identify socio-economic groups (such as the elderly, families with children, youth, ethnic minorities, migrants etc.) which may be at a particular disadvantage and would need to be targeted by policies.

The project investigated and compared fruitful frameworks for social enterprises in Macedonia within existing active labour market programmes across the European Union to build a strong pillar for the development of social entrepreneurship in Macedonia.

MOPACT provided the research and practical evidence upon which Europe can begin to make longevity an asset for social and economic development.