Next Left: Building a Welfare Society

Within its Next Left Research Programme, FEPS together with Rafael Campalans will host a two day event, which will be devoted to a theme “Next Left: Building a Welfare Society”.

Following on the earlier common Next Left activities, which featured both the so called national round tables (2010, 2011) and also the academic symposium at the Pompeu Fabra University (2013), this event constitutes a continuation of the ideological debates. It is designed to touch upon the sensitive issue of hard political choices that need to met in order to transform the contemporary welfare states in a way that they serve the needs and realisation of the dreams of the contemporary societies. In that sense different aspects of the discussions led on both the national and the European levels will be deliberated upon, with an aim to try to broaden the horizons of ideological imagination and offer a promising path forward, reaching beyond the limiting talks on scarcity of resources or anxieties around the language of reform. It is therefore most exciting that among the experts, who already accepted the invitations are: Professor Tylor-Gooby, Professor Be a Cantillon; Associate Professor Raquel Gallego Calderon, Lecturer Albert Serra Martin and others.

The two days programme includes an open public debate (on Friday, 14th March) and a closed meeting of the FEPS Next Left Focus Group. The schedule of the first part can be found here, and it will also, among others feature a debate between Dr. Alfred Gusenbauer, Chair of the FEPS Next Left Research Programme and Pere Navarro, First Secretary of the PSC.

The second one will serve as a new opening, marking the beginning of the new cycle – which will feature four sessions in total and within the core of which research papers will be elaborated. Though the principle of the 4 rounds of peer review is to be upheld (following the good tradition of the past years), nevertheless the methodology of work is expected to slightly alter. It will focus on enabling to accelerate in terms of research, while also ensuring more adequate ways of balancing between the more academic deliberations and more politicised proposals’ formulation.

For more information, please do not hesitate to contact Dr. Ania Skrzypek, FEPS Senior Research Fellow at ania.skrzypek@feps-europe.eu or Ms Ischi Graus, FEPS Events Coordinator at ischi.graus@feps-europe.eu