PROGRESS

PROGRESS is a new fund that has been developed by the European Commission. It will replace the four funds which previously dealt with social inclusion (combating discrimination, gender equality, combating social exclusion and incentive measures in the field of employment). The fund will be administered by DG Employment, and will cover the following five areas:
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• Employment
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• Social protection and inclusion
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• Working conditions
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• Anti-discrimination and diversity
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• Gender equality
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Furthermore PROGRESS will finance the following type of activities:
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• Analytical activities such as dissemination of data, carrying out surveys, publishing guides.
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• Mutual learning and awareness-raising such as workshops and seminars on best practice, conferences and media campaigns
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• Support to ‘main actors’ such as funding of EU-wide networks.
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There will be a budget of €743m over seven years, which will run from January 2007 until December 2013. The intervention rateⁱ will be up to 80%. PROGRESS is the transnationalⁱ funding stream, so it is expected that potential projects will need to include partners from at least three Member States. It is open for voluntary and community sector organisations to apply for, particularly those operating at a European level.