The COVID-19 pandemic and its impact on public health, social and economic developments have a stranglehold over all of us. The public health crisis concomitantly entailed both economic and social crises that call for immediate and firm action in employment policies, in combatting poverty and mitigating inequalities and in improving health and long-term care systems. All these topics are core to the European Centre’s expertise. Both ongoing projects and new proposals have therefore started to explicitly embed the challenges and consequences of COVID-19 in their analyses and policy recommendations.
A major challenge during 2020 was certainly to continue our work under conditions of teleworking and teleconferencing. The Management Team together with project coordinators closely monitored the potential impact on timelines and resources to avoid bottlenecks and delays. Colleagues did a marvelous job in reshuffling tasks and resources, so that only a few projects needed to apply for extension or to postpone starting dates, e.g. where travel or fieldwork had become impossible or physical meetings had to be postponed.
To get a comprehensive overview of all our activities, this report highlights projects, publications and conference presentations.
