November 17-18, a Russian-German expert forum “Creation of Social Policy. Social and Labor Relation” was held at the Institute of Contemporary Development. The forum marked the beginning of a long research project with the participation of INSOR, the Institute of Economy at the Russian Academy of Sciences, and the Ebert Foundation (Germany). The project is aimed at defining new components of the ‘social state’ concept, which is fixed in the both of the countries’ constitutions, studying peculiarities of social partnership during globalization, exchanging experience and searching for new solutions in the social sphere and labor relations.