Call for papers

Call for Papers

Social services have a significant impact on the rights, inclusion and well-being of citizens facing structural disadvantage and high levels of complexity in their lives. The provision of social services involves important decisions about defining, understanding, recognising and appropriately addressing needs. However, research and activist work highlight that citizens using social services rarely play a key role in making these decisions and influencing the work of social services (Jørgensenet al., 2025; Wells, 2023). There are significant risks that participation may be reduced to tokenism and tick-boxes (Batty et al., 2022). The poor implementation of participatory mechanisms can even bolster arguments against co-production amongst practitioners and policymakers (McMullin, 2024). Democratic goals of participation and co-creation are thus far from being realised, especially in the context of increasing social inequalities, financial pressures, pandemic-related halts to participation and greater use of digital approaches in the social sector.

This international conference, therefore, explores the question of how democracy can be enhanced within Europe’s social sector. It asks how citizens can shape the work of social services and what innovations can improve the responsiveness of practitioners, services, and policymakers to input from citizens using social services. In particular, the conference aims to highlight solutions that have been co-created by citizen groups and social services to promote inclusiveness, reduce inequalities in civic participation and widen the diversity of citizen voices at different stages of social service delivery or social policy-making processes.

This three-day event is the final conference of the Horizon Europe project, Increasing Responsiveness to Citizens' Voice in Social Services across Europe (RESPONSIVE). It will provide a platform for exchanging research and practice across Europe, as well as sharing the research results of this project, to strengthen the community of scholars, practitioners, activists, policy officers, and citizens who work to promote citizen participation and co-construction within social services and social policy.

Target

Contributions on all types of social services that tackle vulnerability and promote inclusion are welcome, including but not limited to disability, mental health, child protection, social work, youth work, probation, gender-based violence and homelessness. Social services may come from the state, NGO, charities, voluntary, private and mixed sectors.

The conference aims to attract a diverse range of participants, including people who use social services, activists, practitioners, policy officials and researchers. For research presentations, the conference is open to all disciplines, including social and political theory, organisational management, social work, sociology, social movement studies, social pedagogy, gender studies, psychology, social policy, urban studies and economics.

 

Conference language

The conference language is English.

Format:

3-day in-person event.

The hybrid format is not available.

Types of contribution

The conference welcomes four types of contributions:

• Individual submission (10-minute presentation with short discussion): a presentation on a focused topic. The conference organisers will group individual presentations into thematic panels.
• Panel (50 minutes): three to four individual presentations addressing an overarching research topic, followed by audience questions and discussion.
• Poster – A0, including a visual summary of a research.
• Book presentation (10 minutes): for books published since 2021. Presentations will be grouped into a larger session that includes questions from the moderator and audience.

 

References

Batty, G., Humphey, G., & Meakin, B. (2002). Tickboxes and Tokenism? Service User Involvement Report 2022. Shaping Our Lives. https://shapingourlives.org.uk/wp-content/uploads/2022/02/Tickboxes-and-Tokenism-Feb-2022-1.pdf

Jørgensen, T., Seim, S., & Njøs, B. M. (2023). How children and young people understand and experience individual participation in social services for children and young people: a synthesis of qualitative studies. European Journal of Social Work, 27(3), 546–559. https://doi.org/10.1080/13691457.2023.2256490

McMullin, C. (2024). The case against co-production as a silver bullet: Why and when citizens should not be involved in public service delivery. Public Management and Governance Review, 1(1). https://doi.org/10.60733/PMGR.2024.04

Wells, A. (2023). I don’t want a seat at your table: co-production in mental health services. National Survivor User Network, 7 August 2023, https://www.nsun.org.uk/i-dont-want-a-seat-at-your-table-co-production-in-mental-health-services/