Sustainable Procurement in Railway Industry on the Right Track : Romania & Norway in Collaboration (SPRINT)
The project aims to strengthen Green Public Procurement (GPP) practices in the Romanian and Norwegian railway sectors, addressing gaps in sustainable procurement and promoting environmentally friendly solutions. It focuses on innovative procurement strategies, best practices, and sustainable development in the railway sector.
More details can be found here.
PAAR-Net: Participatory Approaches with Older Adults
Babeș-Bolyai Univeristy is a Member of the International PAAR-Net Project. The Faculty of Business of Babeș-Bolyai University is a member of the project’s Management Committee and actively participates in this initiative, contributing to the promotion of participatory research with the elderly.
We are proud to be part of PAAR-Net: Participatory Approaches with Older Adults, an international research network supported by COST Action (CA22167) and coordinated by Jagiellonian University in Kraków.
PAAR-Net is dedicated to rethinking how older adults are involved in research, policymaking, and practice. The project promotes a vision of science that is inclusive, collaborative, and people-centered—science for the people, by the people.
By encouraging participatory approaches with older adults, PAAR-Net aims to make ageing societies more fair, inclusive, and sustainable. Involving older adults directly helps ensure that policies, research, and services reflect their real needs, experiences, and hopes. This leads to more effective outcomes and promotes social justice and equity for older adults across different cultures and countries.
The main goal of PAAR-Net is to close the gap between academic research and real-world policymaking by promoting co-produced knowledge with older adults. The network led by dr hab. Anna Urbaniak from Jagiellonian University in Kraków (Action Chair) and dr Anna Wanka from the University of Vienna (Action Vice Chair) includes over 400 researchers from more than 40 countries, working together to:
* Host international events, including training schools and knowledge exchange meetings;
* Support short-term scientific visits;
* Award grants for independent research and conference participation;
* Produce scientific publications, policy briefs, and materials co-created with older adults.
PAAR-Net’s work is organised into four key focus areas:
1. Health, Care & Support;
2. Community & Place;
3. Technology & Innovation;
4.Synthesis & Quality Standards for Participatory Research.
The initiative also includes a Young Researchers and Innovators Forum and an Older Co-Creators Group, ensuring strong involvement from both emerging scholars and older adults themselves.
Researchers, practitioners, and professionals with relevant expertise are welcome to join PAAR-Net. If your work relates to participatory approaches and any of the project’s focus areas, we encourage you to get involved.
For more details and to learn how to join, visit the official project website: https://paar-net.eu/
Futourwork
Tourism and hospitality (T&H) is a key driver of the European economy, making up over 11.7% of employment. Yet the industry faces deep-rooted challenges that impact workers’ rights, job security and wellbeing – especially for marginalised workers such as women, migrants and young people.
Many T&H workers are in non-standard forms of work, including platform work. Generally considered as self-employed, platform workers risk exploitation, forced labour, mistreatment, and sexual abuse. Furthermore, algorithmic management impacts negatively on these workers. Their precarity is increased due to legal, knowledge and financial obstacles they face in representation and social dialogue structures.
Using an interdisciplinary, gender and intersectional lens, we will address these digital transformations challenging the sector. The project will provide empowering solutions through accessible tools and legal resources for those who need them most:
- Workers to understand their rights;
- Businesses to benchmark and improve worker wellbeing;
- Policymakers to build and strengthen regulations.
FUTOURWORK’s legacy will be enhanced social justice within the tourism and hospitality sector, benefitting workers and businesses alike.
The World we live in. Models and Perspectives of Cross-Border Cooperation in Central-Eastern Europe
In an ever-changing Europe, where challenges such as political tensions and military conflicts test the foundations of peace and stability, it is more important than ever to reflect on the core values that have shaped the European project. As Andrew Linklater describes in The European Civilizing Process, peace, economic development, a commitment to progress, and mutual understanding have long been at the heart of Europe’s collective vision. How do these ideals hold up today, as Europe navigates complex global realities? What remains of the European Dream that Jeremy Rifkin so powerfully described?
More details can be found here.