About the project
The Covid-19 pandemic had a significant impact on society in the past years. It has also created an opportunity for states and the EU to revaluate not only their emergency responses but also their existing policy responses to the many challenges and disruptions created or intensified by the pandemic.
Building on this opportunity, REGROUP studies governance after the Covid-19 pandemic. The project maps out the socio-political dynamics and consequences of Covid-19 and normatively evaluates the pandemic and the governments’ responses to it. Based on this, the project will discern relevant lessons and provide the EU with advice on how to rebuild post-pandemic governance and public policies in an effective and democratic way.
The REGROUP project is multidimensional in its research approach, looking to reach its objectives by using three cross-cutting dimensions to analyse the covid-19 pandemic:
- Multi-mission, in the sense that the project both seeks to map out and evaluate the socio-political dynamics created by the pandemic, as well as provides suggestions for solutions to EU policymakers.
- Multi-level, in which the researchers examine the pandemic across several levels of government: National, supranational and international.
- Multi-sphere, where the project will look at several societal spheres, including the political sphere, the ideational sphere and the digital sphere.
ARENA's role in the project
ARENA is leader of the work on auditing democracy in times of crisis (work package 5). The main objective of this research is to assess the democratic quality of responses to crises such as the Covid-19 pandemic within Europe. The project evaluates both how accessible responses were to different parts of society, and how decision-making processes and measures were in line with different democratic values like transparency, accountability, equality and democratic rights. Based on this assessment, the project will provide recommendations on how to ensure both democracy and legitimacy in times of crisis.
Partner institutions
- University of Groningen, Netherlands
- European University Institute, Italy
- LUISS Guido Carli, Italy
- Jacques Delors Institute, France
- Barcelona Centre for International Affairs, Spain
- Dublin City University, Ireland
- European Policy Centre, Belgium
- University of Cyprus, Cyprus
- Jagiellonian University, Poland
- Istituto Affari Internazionali, Italy
- University of Innsbruck, Austria
- Europa-Kolleg Hamburg, Germany
- Universitat Passau, Germany
Financing
Funded by the European Union's Horizon Europe – Research and Innovation Actions.
Project period: September 2022 - August 2025
Funded by the European Union