The overarching goal of the project is to understand the economic, social, institutional and policy factors that have shaped the impacts of free movement and public debates about it. It aims to help European policymakers develop policy responses that inspire public trust, ensure the fairness and sustainability of free movement, and maintain inclusive policies that reduce inequalities across the continent. First, the project will generate a deeper understanding of the nature and impacts of intra-EU mobility, focusing in particular on how countries’ institutional and policy environments shape the impacts of free movement on individuals, households, labour markets, public services and public finances. Second, it will assess how political and media narratives about intra-EU mobility are formed, focusing on the role of traditional and social media, political discourse, and influential participants in public debates. Third, it will assess the relationship between real and perceived impacts, examining the factors that drive realities and misperceptions about free movement and why these debates have unfolded in different ways across the EU. A consortium of researchers with deep understanding of policies and institutions across Europe will implement a multi-disciplinary research strategy. Cutting-edge research methods will range from content analysis based on machine-learning techniques to multi-wave panel and survey experiments to theoretical and empirical analysis of the role of institutions and norms in shaping free movement and public debates about it. The project combines qualitative and quantitative approaches, carefully integrating work packages to allow data and results to flow seamlessly between them. Policy specialists will develop concrete options for reforms. An experienced communications team will work with consortium members to develop accessible resources, ensuring wide reach to policymakers, media practitioners and influential stakeholders across Europe.

The revolution in information technology over the last years has proven its ability to process huge amounts of data and made evident that big data can change the world. Open Government Data (OGD), from being an obscure possibility just five years ago, is spreading across the globe at a phenomenal rate, delivering the promise to spur innovation, to deliver better services for less money, to improve planning, to increase transparency, and to reduce corruption. In this context, YourDataStories envisions to bring this promise closer to reality, through a highly customisable online platform for data exploitation focused in the financial flows that are critical for transparency, collaboration and participation. Users, ranging from governmental bodies to journalists and to citizens, will be facilitated by powerful and established tools, not only to discover relevant information but also to remix it with diverse and dynamic data sources: YourDataStories acts like an interactive canvas to enable data citizens to (re)write their own data history. YourDataStories brings an innovative solution whose innovation potential spreads across many directions, from leveraging best practices and proven technologies across Europe, to exploiting the social Web for accessing citizens, and to supporting sustainable public services across borders. Building on top of the "Transparency Portal" initiative of the Greek government, YourDataStories can be viewed as a way to showcase and transfer the existing expertise to European level, in an attempt to transform governments and governance in Europe. At the same time, YourDataStories seeks to exploit and embed in this effort the benefits of the social Web, establishing an innovative bidirectional channel between the Social and Semantic Web. Finally, YourDataStories aims to support sustainable services, supported by a marketing ecosystem of applications offering cross-border services of public finance flows across Europe.