DENS Project 

DENS project is intent to evaluate and exchange policies and measures related to increasing the labour supply in the context active ageing and flexicurity that are in common interest of all involved partner countries and wider in EU. Measures directed towards increasing the share of older workers in employment remains one of the priorities of the labour markets in EU and it is necessary to change the approach of the public, stakeholders, employers and older people themselves to the role of the latter on the labour market. Development towards flexicurity is an important element of the wider strategy of human capital development and labour market policies. Flexicurity is a new way of looking at flexibility and security in the labour market and it takes on board four important elements that can help to smooth transitions between jobs: Contractual arrangements, Life-long learning, Active labour market policies and Modern social security systems.

During the project life-cycle, new solutions for the implementation of flexicurity and active ageing policies and practices will be debated – these topics are strongly linked to effective implementation of EES in EU Member States, to preparation of Croatia's future participation in the EU employment strategy and to achieving of broader goals of the Lisbon Strategy, mostly because an understanding of the concept of flexicurity and active ageing on the part of the general public, and particularly of all relevant partners, is of crucial importance.

DENS Objectives

The DENS objectives are: (1) To initiate debate on achievement of European Employment Strategy and Lisbon strategy goals in the terms of current crises; (2) To create a pool of experts and involvement of social partners in exchanging of practices in the area of active ageing and promoting flexicurity; (3) To create proposals of effective measures and structures in the area of active ageing and flexicurity. 

DENS Key Activities

To develop network which will pursue identification and exchange of good practices in transnational and national context, encourage mutual learning and promote EES at its implementation to national and European wide stakeholders, the following activities will be implemented: 

Networking of key stakeholders and sharing good practices:
(a) Setting up national stakeholder action groups to create an effective partnership with and among stakeholders within individual Member State and further on during following activities also between Member States and wider among accession county of Croatia;
(b) Implementation of national workshops to stimulate debate successful and efficient national policies and practices on different levels (national, regional, local) in  the area of  increasing labour supply with a focus on active aging and promoting flexicurity;
(c) Organisation and implementation of transnational forums & benchmarking: Two transnational forums (one in Denmark and one in Czech Republic), accompanied with visits of good practices, will be implemented for representatives of stakeholders action groups. Special attention will be dedicated to the development of an intercultural frame for processing exchange and development of national and regional experiences in contexts of active aging and promoting flexicurity by having in mind guidelines and principles that characterize the design and implementation of successful labour market approaches for dealing with current crisis and the effects beyond the crisis.

Transnational Conference:
Two days transnational conference will be implemented in Slovenia in March 2011 to share solutions, initiatives and approaches that have been recognised as good solutions and debate possible new solutions for the implementation of flexicurity and active ageing policies and practices. These topics are strongly linked to effective implementation of EES in EU Member States and achieving of broader goals of the Lisbon Strategy.

Awareness raising communication and dissemination campaign:
Understanding of the concept of flexicurity and active ageing on the part of the general public, and particularly of all relevant partners, is of crucial importance. Therefore, an communication, awareness raising and dissemination campaign is also one of the key activities of the project where also reportages will be recorded and broadcasted on national TV in Slovenia as well as on project web page and partners web pages.

DENS Target Groups

Stakeholders: relevant representatives of social partners, employment bodies, employee’s, employers (trade unions), policy makers and actors in the area of employment and social policy to whom the information about the project will be delivered, and project outputs and results promoted. They will be also actively include in Stakeholders action groups (SAG) in all partners countries and participate to national and international forums and conference with the purpose of mainstreaming recommendations and solutions in the area of flexicurity and active ageing to employment and social policies;
Companies will be involved in the project via their representatives as well as targeted by awareness raising, communication and dissemination, represent also one of the important wider target group, especially in the context of Corporate social reasonable actions related to HRD and active ageing;
Media: to announce the initiation of DENS project, its objectives and expected results and during the project life-cycle promote project’s achievements and concrete results;
Wider public: employees, older people and other will be targeted by individual partner with the aim to raise overall awareness on the project and its objectives, flexicurity and employment of elderly people by using local media to promote project and its results.

DENS Key Messages

DENS will raise efficiency!

By sharing experience and exchanging best practices on successful and efficient genuine locally generated employment strategies with successful old EU Member States the project will contribute to more consistent and homogenous generation and implementation of employment strategies at national, regional and local level that are in line with EES.

DENS will raise awareness on European employment strategy!

The awareness about employment strategies in Europe will be raised. By disseminating DENS project' results trough different events and by active involvement of key local stakeholders from partners counties to DENS forums and conference the recommendations on improvement of active ageing and flexicurity will be mainstream to local / regional / national and EU labour market policies.

DENS will strengthen the capacities of social partners!

By designing in stakeholder’s action groups stakeholders will be involved in preparation of employment strategies development of projects to be financed by ESF and will support the context of EES. Trough process of mutual learning stakeholders will strengthen their capacity.


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