Policy Brief: Transnational Collaborations in the Social Sciences and Humanities

This policy brief on Transnational Collaborations in the Social Sciences and Humanities derives from insights generated at the EUROMOBI Conference, part of the EU-funded EuroMobi project (Horizon Europe, Grant No. 101232335), which explored mobility, demographic change, and socio-economic resilience in Europe. The conference took place 4th to 6th June 2025 in Warsaw, Poland, and the brief was later completed by the CHANSE KEF team with input from contributors to the event.

The plenary session was held on Thursday 5th June 2025. During this session, panellists from multiple CHANSE funded projects, including project leads, collaboration partners and those supporting, funding or overseeing transformations-oriented collaborative research in Europe, were invited to reflect on the complexities and contradictions of international, cross-disciplinary research in the social sciences and humanities.

This policy brief is a call to action for academia, funding bodies and other policy makers to:

  • Facilitate more varied matchmaking opportunities between academics and stakeholders, alongside increased support and training around stakeholder relations.
  • Explore opportunities to develop a European system to promote peer-reviewed or quality-assured non-academic publications and other outputs from social sciences and humanities research.
  • Work with academic and non-academic stakeholders in developing novel and broad-ranging funding opportunities, including trialling new systems to generate nuanced policies and other rapid real-world applications based on emergent research findings.
  • Invest in flexible grant-giving parameters for transnational collaborations in the humanities and social science to cater to their unique needs.
  • Support academics at all career stages, especially those in senior roles without existing skills and knowledge, in developing and modelling their aptitude for knowledge exchange and collaboration.
  • Support policy makers and government bodies to accurately model and compensate for the time and expertise sought from research advisors to inform policy.