CASE - Center for Social and Economic Research

We are an independent non-profit economic and public policy research institution founded on the idea that evidence-based policy making is vital to the economic welfare of societies. Our mission is to provide objective economic analysis and to foster the quality of policy-making to improve the lives of Europeans and their neighbours. Established in 1991 in Warsaw, CASE assisted policy-makers during the early years of transition, before turning its attention to the challenges inherent in the European Union enlargement process and then EU key policy challenges in the globalized world. While remaining focused on our five core thematic areas of: (1) European Neighbourhood Policy, enlargement, trade and economic integration, (2) labour markets, human capital and social policy, (3) innovation, competitiveness and entrepreneurship, (4) reforms, growth and poverty reduction in developing and transition countries, (5) macroeconomics and public finance, we want to contribute to new debates facing Europe, including the economic impact of climate change mitigation policies and the economics of energy policy.

Generally, CASE is involved in four types of activities:
• Policy-oriented social and economic research;
• Advisory activity aimed at governments and international organizations;
• Publishing activity dedicated to the dissemination of research results
• Educational activity in the form of seminars, courses, study tours and conferences;

In addition to consolidating our position in the European research market, we are also broadening our geographic horizons by going beyond our traditional countries of interests, i.e., the Western Balkans and the Commonwealth of Independent States. Starting in 2006, we became active in the Middle East and Africa, where we hope to strengthen our presence by competing for technical assistance projects.

Networking and communications activities remain central to our organizational development. As CASE is approaching its 25 anniversary of existence in 2016, we want to build on our relationships with our own internal network, associated organizations, and membership in international and external networks, partnerships and alliances to make our research and expertise available and have a growing impact in the European policy debate. Reaching out to an increasing number of international experts is another priority we are working on.
CASE has extensive experience with projects run for the European Commission or international foundations in the field of EU key policy challenges, European Union enlargement and transition economies. Up till now, however, CASE has not been involved in the EVS. As our activities develop and we take a keen interest in European awareness of youth, encouraging active civic engagement, projects designed and implemented by youth, we are eager to involve young people in our actions and make youth the target group of our European civic engagement raising activities.

We believe that CASE mission: empowering civil society, to foster the quality of policy-making to improve the lives of Europeans and their neighbors, improving communication and transparency on EU level are those close to young people. Our dynamic organisation - headquartered in Warsaw with multi-national staff and running a variety of projects - provides a good learning environment. One of strong points of CASE is its double vocation of being a think-thank as well as being an active coordinator of many European projects. EVS corresponds with the mission of CASE, which is to enhance civic participation in activities linked to EU policies, direct participation in the policy making process, promotion of societal engagement and solidarity.

CASE has been a host organization for more than 40 interns from the whole Europe and beyond since 2008, many of which later joined the EU and UN institutions (15%), or further cooperated with CASE on contract bases (30%). We host around 5 interns every year for a 3-month paid internship. Our experience has shown that our internship programmes are not only highly valuable and beneficial for interns but also for communities directly involved in it. Interns at CASE assist in most of CASE projects. Some of the skills they learn are: writing project applications, econometric modeling, and searching for relevant EU funding opportunities.

Presently, we would like to further develop the traineeship programme into the EVS programme to build more solidarity, promote tolerance and increase the level of active citizenship, as well as to give better learning opportunities for young people. Moreover, in the framework of our various projects our foundation cooperates with a wide range of Polish and foreign organizations. We would therefore want to use these contacts to spread information about EVS. Moreover, besides cooperating with organizations from the Programme countries, our traditional countries of interests are Partner countries, especially in the Eastern Europe and Caucasus. As part of its continuing efforts to increase the range and quality of economic information available to decision-makers and the public across the transition world, as well as to foster a vibrant civil sector in previously closed societies, CASE has founded five daughter organizations:

• CASE Belarus (based in Warsaw)
• CASE Kyrgyzstan (based in Bishkek),
• CASE Moldova (based in Chisinau),
• CASE Ukraine (based in Kiev),
• CASE Georgia (based in Tbilisi)

CASE is committed to building the capacity of its daughter-organizations and regularly seeks to involve them in research and advisory projects.

This year CASE's activities are focused on participatory democracy and civic engagement; they have a strongly academic character and involve extensive research, but also more practical activities will provide a follow-up such as: conferences, seminars and free-of-charge trainings for PhD students and young people. In view of these projects we are on the look-out for young Europeans to help us manage the projects. We believe that CASE can provide an excellent training opportunity and at the same time learn a lot from working with young people.