Deadline for paper abstracts: 15 March 2026
We invite scholars, researchers, and practitioners from diverse disciplines to participate in the Fifth Solidarity in Europe (SiE) annual conference, organised by the European Governance and Politics Programme (EGPP) at the Robert Schuman Centre for Advanced Studies, European University Institute.
Organised solidarity provides the members of a community with an insurance mechanism against adverse risks. This allows individual members to accept more risk, thereby enabling the group as a whole to pursue more ambitious goals and defend its community cohesion more effectively under conditions of adversity. Yet, solidarity is costly, uneven, and breeds moral hazard. In a large and diverse union such as the European Union, these tensions make solidarity potentially very rewarding for all, but also very fragile.
The EUI-YouGov Solidarity in Europe survey has tracked European citizens’ attitudes toward cross-border risk and burden sharing since 2018. The survey explores the determinants of public support for European solidarity across multiple dimensions: solidarity for what (issue specificity), solidarity how (instrumentation), and solidarity by whom and for whom (geography and reciprocity). The findings consistently reveal that European solidarity is more than superficial. It varies by crisis type, with strong solidarity for external shocks such as pandemics and natural disasters, and weaker solidarity for internally generated problems such as debt crises. By and large, European citizens view solidarity as a reciprocal benefit rather than a moral or identity-based obligation, and they prefer permanent arrangements of risk and burden sharing to ad hoc mutual assistance.
New data release: 2018-2025 trendfile
We are pleased to announce the release of the Solidarity in Europe 2018-2025 Trendfile, now available for download. This dataset allows researchers to track changes in European solidarity attitudes over eight years, capturing responses to major crises including the Covid-19 pandemic, the energy crisis, and geopolitical shifts. The trendfile is available here.
Conference themes
This two-day conference aims to bring together cutting-edge research on European solidarity from a variety of disciplinary, methodological, and empirical perspectives. We particularly encourage submissions based on the YouGov-EUI SiE dataset, but we also welcome contributions using different data sources as well as theoretical contributions. Examples of relevant themes include:
1. Determinants of solidarity attitudes: We welcome studies examining how individual-level factors (identity, ideology, economic position) and contextual factors (crisis exposure, media framing, political discourse) shape support for European solidarity. What explains variation in solidarity attitudes across countries, time, and crisis types?
2. Solidarity and political behaviour: How do solidarity attitudes relate to voting behaviour, party preferences, and support for European integration? We invite papers analysing the political consequences of solidarity (or its absence) for national and EU-level politics.
3. Issue-specific solidarity: Research has shown that European solidarity varies substantially by crisis type. We invite contributions that explore solidarity attitudes toward specific challenges including climate change, migration, health crises, economic shocks, and security threats.
4. Instruments and governance of solidarity: Europeans prefer permanent EU-level arrangements over ad hoc bilateral support. We welcome papers examining public preferences for different solidarity instruments, including fiscal transfers, common debt instruments, and institutional mechanisms.
5. Theoretical and methodological innovations: We strongly encourage papers that propose theoretical frameworks for understanding transnational solidarity, as well as methodological innovations in measuring and analysing solidarity attitudes across borders and over time.
Timeline
Deadline for paper abstracts (approximately 300 words): 15 March 2026
Communication of accepted papers: 27 March 2026
Deadline for submission of full papers: 11 May 2026
Fees and Funding
There is no conference registration fee. Participants are expected to cover their own travel and accommodation in Florence. A limited number of scholarships may become available to support attendance for early career scholars from countries covered by the EUI Widening Europe Programme*. If you require financial support to attend, please indicate this in your application form and provide a brief justification. We will confirm whether these scholarships are available when we notify selected participants of paper acceptance.
Contact
For inquiries, please contact: Lorenzo.Cicchi@eui.eu
*Targeted countries in the Widening region:
Inside the European Union: Bulgaria, Croatia, Cyprus, Czechia, Estonia, Greece, Hungary, Latvia, Lithuania, Malta, Poland, Portugal, Romania, Slovakia, and Slovenia.
Outside the European Union: Albania, Bosnia & Herzegovina, Georgia, Kosovo, Moldova, Montenegro, North Macedonia, Serbia, and Ukraine.