In 2013, as a response to rising inequalities, poverty and distrust in the EU, the Commission launched a major endeavour to rebalance economic and social policies with the Social Investment Package (SIP). RE-InVEST aims to strengthen the philosophical, institutional and empirical underpinnings of the SIP, based on social investment in human rights and capabilities. Our consortium is embedded in the ‘Alliances to Fight Poverty’. We will actively involve European citizens severely affected by the crisis in the co-construction of a more powerful and effective social investment agenda with policy recommendations. This translates into the following specific objectives: 1. Development of innovative methodological tools for participative research, involving mixed teams of researchers, NGO workers and people from vulnerable groups in the co-construction of knowledge on social policy issues; 2. Diagnosis of the social damage of the crisis in terms of (erosion of) human rights, social (dis)investment, loss of (collective) capabilities; 3. Analysis of the relationships between the rise of poverty and social exclusion, the decline of social cohesion and trust, and the threats to democracy and solidarity in the EU; 4. Development of a theoretical model of social investment, with a focus on the promotion of human rights and capabilities; 5. Application of this model to active labour market policies and social protection: evaluation of policy innovations through qualitative and quantitative analyses; 6. Application of the same model to public intervention in five selected basic service markets: water provision, housing, early childhood education, health care and financial services, through qualitative and quantitative analyses; 7. Analysis of the macro-level boundary conditions for successful implementation of the SIP; 8. Capacity building in civil society organisations for the promotion of the European social investment agenda, through networking and policy recommendations.