The REF-AMP project was promoted by the Porto Metropolitan Area within a wider strategy framework for the metropolitan social action, in which the strategic planning of policies and operability, innovation and social entrepreneurship are grounding elements.

The scientific and technical coordination of the project’s development and its material execution is the responsibility of a group of researchers from the Faculty of Psychology and Education Science of the University of Porto, in association with the Instituto Superior de Ciências da Saúde – Norte, CESPU, CRL: Rui Serôdio, José Albino Lima and Alexandra Serra. The empirical support along every stage of the project was based on the effective participation of a wide set of relevant interlocutors from all the 17 AMP’s municipalities: councillors, directors, officers and technical staff, social action local partners.

Two factors played a structural role:

1. The Strategic Reference Terms is strongly operational, as the proposed action lines enhance the promotion of an integrated and network management of the metropolitan social action;

2. The project was strongly structured around applied research methodologies that supported the creation of the Strategic Reference Terms, throughout a process comprehensively participated by “key-agents” within the implementation of social action policies within the AMP’s framework, namely in the associated municipalities.

The REF-AMP Project resulted in several products or tools that are relevant for the strategic planning of the metropolitan action. Special mention goes to the Strategic Reference Terms for Social Intervention in the Porto Metropolitan Area, defining four combined priorities for the Metropolitan Social Action: Health and Welfare, Employability and Qualification for Work, Social Inclusion and Training and Empowerment. Each of these priorities is transformed into Specific Problematics and their respective Operational Solutions. The REF-AMP also suggests 6 Areas for Strategic Social Action, operationalised through subordinate Lines of Action: Metropolitan Social Monitor, Implementation Assessment and Monitoring, Social Impact Assessment, Actions’ Publicity and Social Visibility, Social Responsibility, Actions’ Sustainability and Financing, Entrepreneurship and Social Innovation.

The REF-AMP Project also allowed to define the AMP’S Social Action Strategic Profile, based on the analysis of contents from the social action strategic planning devices established in the local framework of the AMP’s municipalities.

The following documents present the research methods used and the results obtained throughout a process that was effectively participated by all “key-agents” within the AMP’s social action politics implementation framework (in Portuguese).