In this article, we argue that basic social policy concepts can fertilise the discussion on active labour market policy (ALMP). During the last decades, research on ALMP has become a flourishing field. This is an overall positive development. However, the development tends to fractionate the wider picture of social policy and distance the discussion from social policy seen as a multifold set of government measures that have a direct impact on the welfare of the citizens, by providing services and/or income. We analyse a local ALMP programme in the light of three classical social policy concepts: universalism, selectivism and need. To understand what is going on in ALMP programmes, we argue that it is as important to uncover claims made by the state as it is to satisfy the human needs most often presented as the objectives of ALMP programmes. We propose that the programme under study be characterised as a hybrid, combining elements frequently perceived as dichotomies in social policy literature. Selectivism and universalism are both present as principles and the programme consists of benefits in cash and in kind.
Orientation towards application, transdisciplinarity and social distribution are prominent ideas when policy prescribes how to conduct research on complex, real-world issues. Issues dealt with in ageing research are both epistemologically complex and politically contentious. By using the metaphor of 'travelling ideas,' we have followed these ideas on their journey into 17 approved grant proposals on ageing and their assessments in Sweden in 2016. We considered collaboration as the modus operandi of the implementation of the three ideas. Thus, we analyzed how plans for collaboration were described in the data. The result shows that although the ideas were clearly present in the policy documents, they were almost eviscerated in the majority of proposals and assessments. Only three out of 17 proposals reflected the ideas. Thus, collaboration as an aspect of research was not codified. As long as there is no established way of describing collaboration, researchers struggle to invent their own tentative versions, that is, a collaborology.
scite is a Brooklyn-based organization that helps researchers better discover and understand research articles through Smart Citations–citations that display the context of the citation and describe whether the article provides supporting or contrasting evidence. scite is used by students and researchers from around the world and is funded in part by the National Science Foundation and the National Institute on Drug Abuse of the National Institutes of Health.