Projects should contribute to all of the following expected outcomes:

• Policymakers gain insights into the cost of child poverty and the returns from securing access of disadvantaged children to quality Early Childhood Education and Care (ECEC) in the EU.
• Policymakers receive operational advice on ways to reduce this cost and support participation of disadvantaged children in quality ECEC to close the gap with other children in the EU.

Past studies researched the cost of child poverty, and the returns yielded by and ways to secure disadvantaged children’s participation to ECEC, yet their relevance to the current EU context is limited (i.e. most of them were conducted outside of the EU or they are now outdated). Producing EU-specific insights on these issues is the aim of this topic, which should help close the ECEC participation gap and improve social outcomes, in line with the European Pillar of Social Rights, while fostering fiscal sustainability and inclusive growth.

The proposals may:

• Define disadvantaged children, by going beyond monetary aspects of disadvantages, building on the EU’s concept of risk of poverty or social exclusion, and taking into account systemically marginalised groups.
• Estimate the cost of child poverty and the returns yielded by participation to quality ECEC by taking into account:
  • children’s needs and effective benefits targeting them,
  • the short and longer-term costs/returns,
  • the economic, social, wellbeing and educational aspects of these costs/returns,
  • children’s, parents’ and aggregate outcomes.
• Investigate barriers preventing disadvantaged children from accessing quality ECEC.
• Provide a mapping of the most efficient policies to reduce child poverty cost, comparing ECEC policies’ value for money with other policies.
• Develop evidence-based and operational policy advice, including ways to better account for these costs/returns in policymaking and good (established or innovative) practices to close the ECEC participation gap. Scalability of these practices may be addressed.
• Use research methodologies of relevance (qualitative and quantitative, including experimental ones), building on multidisciplinary insights (including from SSH disciplines), and either make use of existing datasets (including administrative datasets), or collect new data. Experts by experience (i.e. vulnerable children and parents) may be involved.