WED PT – Elites in Portugal is a research project inscribed in the World Elite Database (https://worldelitedatabase.org/), which is a cooperative data and analysis project led by researchers on elite populations across the world. We are an international consortium of scholars from Argentina, Chile, China, Denmark, Italy, France, Finland, Germany, Norway, Poland, Portugal, Russia, Sweden, Switzerland, the United Kingdom, and the USA, but with the purpose of expanding to more countries worldwide. We work together to develop a new standardized data regime to study and share data about elites. Our aim is to solve the problem of comparability and heterogeneity in the study of national power structures, and to foster a cooperative community of scholars interested in studying elite populations systematically. Having in mind this international approach, “WED PT – Elites in Portugal” also has the objective of deepening the study of elites in Portugal, and for that will mobilize the theoretical and methodological instruments for historical and contemporary challenges that the study of elites entails for better understanding inequalities, class, values, democracy, economic growth, development, and social well-being.

The iNSPIRE Social Entrepreneurs Network (iNSPIRE) project will create a learning HUB that will develop inspiring apprenticeships processes, based on the identification of transferable lessons from the formal and informal learning environment to support the development of a social entrepreneurship network in several European countries (Turkey, Portugal, Ireland, France, and Belgium). Ireland and Belgium have already an important background in social entrepreneurship and will contribute to creating a strong partnership to support and develop a European social cluster. Evidence from Ireland and Belgium shows that social entrepreneurship demonstrates great potential for employment growth. The iNSPIRE goal is to improve skills for social entrepreneurs and increase the potential for social enterprise creation. The project will engage diverse stakeholders in dialogue and cooperation including non-profit associations, universities, training providers, social innovation organizations, research centers, and public agencies. It will capture the experience, including learning mechanisms, approaches to management, and networking competencies from other projects in the social field, mainly developed by the partners, for instance, capacity building.

This research proposal is concerned wlth the linkages between health and economic growth. We want to study theoretically  and empirical!y  the impact of health on the accumulation of  human capital and, through this channel,  on economic  growth and wealth. Past research  has provided some lnformation on relationships between hea!th and economic growth and  wealth  (Bloom et  ai.,  2000;  2001;  2004; 2005;  Van  Zon  and Muysken, 2000; Wei, 2005), but much remalns to be studied, While human capital  is sometimes  narrowly defined  in  terms of education,  in recent years health has increasingly been recognized as a key component  of human capital (UNDP  2008). Following Mankiw, Romer e Weil (1992),a large economic growth literature recognized the importance of factors such as hea!th and nutrition, broadening the analysis of human capita!. Good health raises leveis of human capital, and this has a positive effect on individual productivity and on economic growth rates. Better health increases workforce productivity by reduclng incapacity, debility, and the number of days lost to slck leave, and increases the opportunitles an individual has of obtalning better paid work. Further, good health helps to forge improved levels of education by lncreasing leve!s of schooling and scholastic performance. There is also an important positive spillover effect in that the resources that would  otherwise  be used for preventatlve health treatments are freed for alternative uses or in cushioning  the  effects of other negative externalíties  such as poverty  within the nation. Given the importance of health, the sustainability of health-sector financing has been of critical concern to many researchers and policy makers The health systems managed by the public sector have been in efficient, hadhigh leveis of debtand were unresponsiveto users: hence they needed reform. A key challenge faced by governments was how to simultaneously address the deteriorating financial conditions in ...