The Lonely-EU Project

Loneliness is a growing challenge across Europe, impacting individuals of all ages. A recent study reveals that 13% of Europeans feel lonely most of the time, and 35% experience it occasionally.

Beyond personal hardship, loneliness strains healthcare systems, leads to lower productivity and shortens life expectancy.

Thanks to the efforts of former MEP Judith Merkies and MEP Evelyn Regner, and many others, loneliness is now on the European Union’s agenda. The European Parliament 2020 pilot project led to the first EU-wide loneliness survey. As a result, in 2023, the Horizon program launched a new initiative to explore its socio-economic impacts.

The Lonely-EU consortium, headed by Prof. Dr. Maike Luhmann, will begin a three-year project in 2025 to monitor loneliness and develop evidence-based policies to address it at both individual and societal levels.

If you are interested in our LONELY-EU project, send us an email at info@lonelinessineurope.eu or reach out to any of us via our LinkedIn profiles.

Together, we’re taking steps toward a more connected and healthier Europe. #Loneliness #SocialConnection #EUResearch #LonelyEU #HorizonEU

Below you find the project partners.

Ruhr University Bochum

Prof. Dr. Maike Luhmann, professor at the Faculty of Psychology at Ruhr University Bochum, is the coordinator of LONELY-EU. In addition to coordinating research and network activities within the consortium, she will lead the development of interactive databases that make secondary data and meta-analytic findings on social isolation and loneliness accessible to a broader audience. She will also use these databases to analyze socioeconomic predictors of social isolation and loneliness across the European Union, building on more than ten years of experience in studying loneliness.

Annecy Behavioral Science Lab (ABSL)

Dr. Hans IJzerman, an expert in social connection and loneliness and vice chair of the Global Initiative on Loneliness and Connection’s International Scientific Board, will co-lead the development of a monitoring framework to assess loneliness across the European Union. His work will focus on understanding the prevalence of loneliness across different populations, while collaborating with policymakers and researchers. A leader in the scientific reform movement, Dr. IJzerman advocates for open science and evidence-based strategies to combat social isolation.

Catholic University of the Sacred Heart – Milan

Prof. Patrizia Catellani, an expert in social psychology and advanced statistical modeling at the Catholic University of the Sacred Heart – Milan, will help to identify the socio-economic causes and consequences of loneliness using probabilistic models optimized by machine learning techniques. She will also lead the development of a decision support system to support the development of interventions against loneliness in different EU contexts. She will pay particular attention to diagrams and models that can be easily interrogated by relevant stakeholders, such as policy makers and practitioners.

Fioti

Rob Blaauboer of Fioti will focus on Communication, Dissemination and Exploitation. He is an experienced journalist as well as project- and work package leader in both national and EU funded projects. He will focus on managing communication in the general sense, help disseminate deliverables including transformation in suitable forms for other stakeholders, as well as together with Judith Merkies (VU), work to build the network of experts and policymakers in order to,  in the end, offer policy makers evidence-based policy recommendations that will help lessen Social Isolation and Loneliness.

SWPS University

Katarzyna Growiec, PhD, an expert in social psychology and quantitative methods at the SWPS University in Warsaw, will help to build a searchable database of publicly available datasets on social isolation and loneliness in EU countries. She will also identify possible economic and social consequences of social isolation and loneliness paying special attention to geographical differences in the costs of social isolation and loneliness across EU countries.

University of Milan

Prof. Cristiano Vezzoni, an expert in survey methods and political sociology at the University of Milan, will collaborate on creating a monitoring framework to assess loneliness across the European Union. His work will focus on designing valid and reliable instruments to detect and monitor loneliness and social isolation across diverse cultural contexts, drawing from prior research data. As a passionate advocate for research infrastructures in the social sciences, both in Europe and globally, he will promote the implementation of the FAIR data principles within the project.

Vrije Universiteit

Judith Merkies is leading the formulation of evidence-based policy recommendation, though the establishment of the Evidence-to-Action (E2A) Board and the SIL network. With a proven track record in politics, advocacy and network building through her work in public and private sectors, as well as her experience as a Member of the European Parliament and her current academic role at Vrije Universiteit Amsterdam, she focuses on bridging research and policy to tackle social isolation and loneliness.