DIRECTOR
Gabriel Amitsis
Social Security Law Professor
Director
Gabriel Amitsis, PhD., MA and BA in law, is an international lawyer and academic, first rank Professor of Social Security Law in the Department of Business Administration (Social Policy Unit) at the University of West Attica. He also serves as the Director of the Social Administration Research Lab, acting as Head of its a) Social Welfare and Inclusion, b) Employment and Labour Relations, c) Social Economy and Social Entrepreneurship and d) Social Housing Research Hubs.
He has undertaken research and teaching since 1998 at the Athens University of Applied Sciences, the Greek Open University, the Panteion University, the Nicosia University, the Hellenic National School of Public Administration & Local Government and the Hellenic National Centre for Social Research in areas relating to International, European and comparative employment, health, social security, occupational welfare and inclusion policies. He is the representative of the University of West Attica in HOUSING EUROPE – The European Federation of Public, Cooperative and Social Housing, acting as Vice-Chair of the Working Group for Housing Systems in Transition.
Prof. Amitsis practices law in cases concerning public administration, labour and social security jurisdictions; he also serves as senior social policy consultant on behalf of national administrations and International Organizations, while he is a key expert in EU and national projects on public governance, employment, social protection, health care, civil society and migration. He was commissioned by the Greek government as the senior policy expert for “The Green Paper on the National Social Inclusion Strategy” (Ministry of Labour, Social Insurance and Welfare, 2013-2014) and the Coordinator of the National Social Inclusion Strategy (adopted by the European Commission in January 2015) and the National Action Plan to combat homelessness (Ministry of Labour, Social Insurance and Welfare, 2014-2016). He now serves as a Member of the National Commission on Social Care (Ministry of Labour, Social Insurance and Welfare) and the National Council for the simplification and codification of the Greek legislation (Ministry of Interior).
He is the Coordinator of the Greek Chapter of the Academics Stand Against Poverty Network (an international association focused on helping researchers and academic teachers enhance their impact on poverty) and a senior member of the European Network for Research on Supplementary Pensions. His research interests focus on the regulation of social security, occupational welfare, health, social care, anti-poverty, employment, social entrepreneurship, housing and migration policies.
He is author and co-author of twenty books, has published in international edited books and journals and he also serves as the editor of the series “The Reform of the Social State”, published by the leading Greek Publisher Papazisis. His best-selling monograph “The commitment to active inclusion of vulnerable groups – Lessons from Social Europe” (in Greek) was published in 2014 by Papazisis with a foreword from Laszlo Andor, former EU Commissioner for Employment, Social Affairs and Inclusion.