European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound)

The European Foundation for the Improvement of Living and Working Conditions (Eurofound) is a tripartite European Union Agency, whose role is to provide knowledge to assist in the development of better social, employment and work-related policies. 

Eurofound provides information, advice and expertise on working conditions and sustainable work, industrial relations, labour market change and quality, and life and public services, to support the EU Institutions and bodies, Member States and Social Partners in shaping and implementing social and employment policies, as well as promoting social dialogue on the basis of comparative information, research and analysis. In addition, Eurofound addresses the policy challenges in two transversal thematic activities, such as anticipating and managing the impact of change and promoting social cohesion and convergence.

Eurofound's three regularly repeated pan-European surveys contribute to the work in the strategic areas. These are the European Company Survey (ECS), European Quality of Life Survey (EQLS) and European Working Conditions Survey (EWCS). Eurofound’s surveys collect original and fully comparable data covering all EU Member States and a range of other countries. In April 2020, the Agency kick-started a unique and large-scale e-survey, Living, working and COVID-19, to capture the far-reaching implications of the pandemic for the way people live and work across the EU. Moreover, Eurofound has at its disposal a network of national correspondents, based in all Member States plus Norway. Eurofound's EU PolicyWatch collates information on the responses of government and social partners to the COVID-19 crisis, the war in Ukraine, rising inflation, as well as gathering examples of company practices aimed at mitigating the social and economic impacts.