HORIZON-CL2-2026-01-TRANSFO-07 · The brief
GreenPulse anchors in CNAM's research tradition and builds on Narrative Science work (LSE / ERC) to deliver the meso-level evidence the call demands: sectoral competence and worker agency through the twin transition.
The call’s own invitation
“Most available research on the green transition focuses on macro-level policies, overlooking how workers and communities can drive change.”
— European Commission, Work Programme 2026, TRANSFO-07
The green transition will succeed or fail at the meso-level. Policy lacks a calibrated method for seeing what happens there. GreenPulse provides that method.
Bridging the skills-intelligence gap
Skills foresight says:
Green skills embed across occupations, not isolated "green jobs." But *how* they embed—the timing, relational density, narrative logic—remains opaque in static taxonomies.
GreenPulse answers:
Narrative-as-evidence captures competence *in motion*—how workers articulate contingency, contradiction, adaptation across skill transitions. The dynamic missing from checkbox surveys.
The labour-market paradox:
Over-skilling dominates Europe; policy invests in upskilling. But policy doesn't see *why* workers are over-skilled relative to their jobs—structure, affordances, mediation.
GreenPulse method:
The STS apparatus diagnostic: does a tool, curriculum or AI interface open or constrain worker agency in the situation? The missing measure in GreenComp.
The ambition · Three outcomes
TRANSFO-07 specifies three expected outcomes.
Identify the competences
“Identify which competences workers need for the green transition.”
The Meso Competence Observatory and the Competence Equity Monitor map competences where Cedefop · ESCO · Eurostat data thin out: workplace, sector, community of practice. Each statement is calibrated against Narrative Science quality criteria (consistency · coherence · adequacy) and mapped to GreenComp's twelve competences.
Actionable advice on E&T + policy
“Actionable advice on education-and-training programmes and policy measures, including gender and disability.”
The Policy Roadmap: competence-pathway briefs per anchor region, one addressed to policymakers and one to education-and-training institutions — evidence civil servants, social partners and unions can reuse. GRBC bootcamps and Green Transition Academies carry findings into vocational practice, with a disability-inclusion track and youth tracks via ZOCG (Montenegro) and the Academies replication network.
Guidance on green ↔ digital
“Guidance on the interconnection between the green and digital transitions.”
Meso Competence Survey: a Digital-Green Competence Matrix (grid-data literacy ↔ renewables · AI-fluency ↔ industrial energy · prompt-craft ↔ vocational tooling), aligned to the JRC Twin Transitions report. Competence Equity Monitor logs human-agent dialogue as competence evidence. AI's own energy footprint and corpus politics are objects of study.
Going further
Worker-machine interaction is shifting to natural-language agents. Narrative-as-evidence moves from one method among many toward a plausibly paradigmatic route to competence. Competence Equity Monitor is built for that shift; Meso Competence Survey documents its contradictions.
GreenPulse converges four lineages: the LSE / ERC Narrative Science programme; STS · philosophy of language · information-and-communication sciences; digital-narrative observatories (Helgeson · Glynn · Chabay); and the PI's own work — communicational being of machines, inchoative design, New Green Narratives at Green Forum.
Narrative-cascade workshops (Protocol A) generate primary worker testimony in the anchor regions. The Musée des Arts et Métiers adds historical-archival reconstruction (Protocol B) — archives read as longitudinal series. A mid-project Multi-Stakeholders Meeting feeds findings into Round 2.
Originality · The signature
From colour to evidence.
Narrative Science treats worker testimony as knowledge: identified (Hajek's fuzzy-set protocol, after Ryan), positioned (Berry's tellability · focalisation · synoptic judgment), audited (Morgan's three quality criteria), causally defended (Crasnow's process-tracing standards).
What the worker can tell, what stays tacit.
The LSE / ERC calibration. Meunier separates research-narratives from narratives-of-nature. Paskins's breakdown narratives read closures and accidents, where missing competences surface.
The NECx protocol. A narrative-cascade method combining Biographic Narrative Interpretive Method, Life History, and Narrative Inquiry framed by phenomenological epistemology. Piloted in Ukunda, Kenya (May 2025) under the New Green Narratives (NGN) programme, the protocol draws on Communication Sciences for participatory framing and reflects traditions from qualitative research across contexts.
Why narrative works. Narrative-as-evidence captures the timing and relational density of competence that static skill taxonomies miss. Workers articulate contingency, contradiction, and adaptation more faithfully in narrative form than in checkbox surveys.
Competence as relation, not as item on a list.
Relations over things. Drawing on STS (Science and Technology Studies) and Communication Sciences, the apparatus treats competence as a relation—between worker, machine, milieu and moment.
The affordance-and-constraint measure. A diagnostic axis: does a tool, curriculum or agent interface open or constrain the worker's capacity to act in the situation? The missing measure in GreenComp.
Mediation by AI. AI agents become participants in workplace knowledge-making, not external judges of worker performance.
Reticulation. Does a new energy infrastructure, training programme or digital workflow re-couple workers to geographic and ecological anchors, or fragment them?
Built on HPS, STS and Communication Sciences.
Picking up where EU work left us
GreenPulse does not start from zero. It starts from the quantitative-skills baseline that Cedefop, JRC, SkillsPULSE and BRIDGES 5.0 have built — and carries it the meso-level step those projects cannot make from their methodological positions.
What the EU baseline measures
What GreenPulse adds
SkillsPULSE measures what skill is missing. GreenPulse explains why the gap reproduces.
Both methods sit inside the consortium. The handoff is not a promise — it is the consortium roster.
Why now
The policy window
Three EU instruments — Union of Skills, Pact for Skills, GreenComp — need a method to test whether their frames reach the workplaces.
The institutional moment
CNAM crosses its 232nd year of continuous lifelong learning in 2026.
The AI shift
Narrative-as-evidence becomes load-bearing in the next 24 months.
What leaves the project
Two field-instrument protocols that give the fieldwork corpus its own citable release, four integration artefacts (Observatory · Equity Monitor · Digital-Green Matrix · Integrated assessment), one quantitative-survey stream, one translation-to-policy stream (Roadmap), one inclusive replication stream (GRBC · Academies · Expo-Action) — with FAIR / EOSC deposits distributed across the results that carry them.
KER1
Meso Competence Observatory
KER2
Competence Equity Monitor
KER3
Meso Competence Survey datasets
KER4
Policy Roadmap
KER5
Digital-Green Competence Matrix
KER6
EETx replication kit (GRBC · Academies · Expo-Action)
KER7
Curriculum Response Interval instrument
KER8
Narrative explanation protocol
KER9
Integrated meso assessment
Where this goes next
GreenPulse submits 23 September 2026 · 17:00 Brussels. Three roles to fill: an SME or employer association in energy-transition skills, a Cedefop / Eurofound / ELA advisory seat, and up to four Narrative Science network members on the Advisory Board.