European research projects as a driving force for growth

European research and cooperation projects are a driving force of social, cultural and economic growth throughout the European Union, which accordingly sponsors and finances them. This article explains how the European RISEWISE - RISE Women in Social Engagement - project offers evidence of the above, constituting a prototype to be replicated so as to increase the project’s impacts. The activities pursued by the project over the four and half years for which it ran, for many aspects, were breakthrough in nature, breaking down the invisible barriers between dialogue and knowledge transfer and exchange between the academic world and the tertiary sector, between public and private, between researchers and social care professionals, between men and women, between people with and without disabilities and between grass-root movement activists and policy-makers. The success of the capillary dissemination and the large number of people who listened to, frequented and monitored the project activities, bear witness to the fact that it is indeed possible to implement change in the institutional activities of entities of very different cultures, sectors, origins, countries and languages and, in doing so, to form a prototype for change and inclusion, above all to increase the inclusion of women with disabilities in research, cooperation and inter- and transnational, as well as inter-sectoral, exchanges.