Dr Rose Marie Azzopardi was an invited speaker at the launch of the Collaborative Research Centre ‘Global Dynamics of Social Policy’, hosted by the University of Bremen.
The launch featured 90 experts from all over the world, who met on 25 and 26 October 2018 and presented their work during the International Conference organised for the occasion of the launch. The EUR 14 million project is for the duration of four years, with the possibility of being extended for a total of twelve years, and is being sponsored by the German Research Foundation.
The project is divided into 16 sub-projects which either focus on an aspect of social policy, or take on a regional perspective or develop and compile global datasets. Dr Azzopardi presented her work on the impact of horizontal and vertical interdependencies (such as migration, economic integration, international organisations, trade agreements and colonialism) on Malta’s social policies over the last 130 years, taking a small states perspective. This research is complementary to her earlier book on Social Policies in Malta, which was a United Nations project.