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Interdisciplinary research projects on Behaviour & Society

Radboud University recognises the fundamental role of interdisciplinary research in addressing the major challenges facing society today. To encourage top level academic collaboration, interfaculty research programmes have been established.

Below you can find more information about all current interdisciplinary research projects, focused on Behaviour & Society. Visit this page for all interdisciplinary research projects.

Projects

Radboud University Network of Migrant Inclusion (RUNOMI)

The Radboud University Network of Migrant Inclusion (RUNOMI) is an interfaculty network organization of more than 60 scholars working at Radboud University. The expansion and intensification of collaboration in research, teaching and partnerships with societal actors in the domain of migrant inclusion studies is at the core of the network. RUNOMI-activities range from designing and implementing education programs, such as Summer School courses, to research valorization activities, for instance research projects, the RUNOMIannual congress and seminars.

Thanks to the lively community of RUNOMI, many activities are initiated button-up and are aimed at a variety of stakeholders such as policy-makers, scientists, migrants and professionals.

More information: Dr. P. Beckers / website
Faculties involved: Nijmegen School of Management, Faculty of Arts, Faculty of Law, Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies and the Radboud University Medical Centre.
Project started in: 2018

Radboud Ecosystem for Active Living (REAL)

Our society has reached the pinnacle of physically inactive behavior, affecting all age groups and socio-economic levels. It is clear that owing to the multi-faceted nature of the problem of inactivity, we need a concerted and multidisciplinary approach to promote a sustained active lifestyle. REAL will integrate these efforts at Radboud University into one ecosystem.

Thus far, the research within REAL has resulted in two large grants, one NWA grant and one ZonMw grant. With respect to education, the interdisciplinary Master ´Omgeving en Gezond Gedrag´ is being developed and currently the following courses are effective, the interdisciplinary honours course ´Active Living´ as well as the ´Honourslab active living´.

More information: Prof. dr. B. Steenbergen / website
Faculties involved: Faculty of Social Sciences, Nijmegen School of Management and Radboud University Medical Centre.
Project started in: 2018

Democratic Lab (DemLab): towards a centre of expertise on democracy

Democratic Laboratory is a collaboration of researchers in the field of democracy from multiple faculties of Radboud University. DemLab wants to contribute to the public debate on democracy in the twenty-first century.

The initiative will develop a course on democracy for different target groups that is based on the game Demos and should be part of a package of lifelong learning. Also, DemLab brings together researchers to develop applications for research grants.​

More information: Dr. M. Terpstra
Faculties involved: Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Nijmegen School of Management and Faculty of Arts.
Project started in: 2019

Radboud Centre for Decision Science

Decision-making is at the core of our lives, from individual choices that affect ourselves (“Should I eat healthier?”) to social choices that can also impact others (“Should I recycle?”). In addition to the inherent scientific interest of developing greater insight into perhaps our most essential human behavior, a better understanding of how people make choices is of paramount importance to public policy, where more complete knowledge of how we decide can have real impact on people’s lives (“How can we ensure people make healthy decisions?”; “How do we promote sustainable behavior”?).

The goal of the Center for Decision Science is to create a campus-wide Radboud University community and infrastructure to address and achieve both of the aforementioned goals:

  1. To bring together researchers from a variety of fields to better investigate the mechanisms, processes, and consequences of human decision-making.
  2. To provide a platform to disseminate these findings to interested external parties and aid in applying insights to public policy.

More information: Prof. dr. A. Sanfey / website
Faculties involved: Initiatied by Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour. Alson involved: Radboud University Medical Centre, Nijmegen School of Management and Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies. Open for participants from all faculties.
Project started in: 2019

Baby and Child Research Center (BRC)

The Baby and Child Research Center (BRC) is the successful public-facing brand for four internationally renowned research groups on the Radboud campus specializing in infant research. However, to date its focus has been mainly on sharing resources, whereas each group has independently promoted their work to researchers, practitioners, and policy-makers within their separate specialist fields. This strategy has been non-optimal, as it under-utilises the cross-disciplinary expertise of the BRC, reduces our chances of impacting national and international policy, and restricts us in developing large research consortia and attracting major grants.

This initiative will establish the BRC as a world-leading research center in the field of infant studies and as a knowledge-platform for societal partners.

More information: Prof. dr. S. Hunnius / website
Faculties involved: Donders Institute for Brain, Cognition and Behaviour, Radboud University Medical Centre, Faculty of Arts and Max Planck Institute for Psycholinguistics.
Project started in: 2019

WORK-LIFE: for better understanding of work-life and study-life

In societies across the globe there is considerable attention for obtaining, maintaining, and managing a healthy and sustainable work-life and study-life balance. Almost all faculties and various institutes of Radboud University conduct research in the realm of these issues. However, there was barely any interaction between these researchers, while collaborative, interdisciplinary arrangements are needed to better understand work-life and study-life balance related issues.

The underlying motivation of the WORK-LIFE consortium is to bring scholars from all Radboud faculties and institutes together as well as external stakeholders to get a fundamental understanding of work-life and study-life balance related issues and to help people to better cope with work-life and study-life challenges and conflicts.

More information: Dr. P. Kruyen
Faculties involved: Initiated by the Nijmegen School of Management. Also involved: Faculty of Social Sciences, Faculty of Law, Radboud University Medical Centre, Faculty of Science and Radboud Teachers Academy.
Project started in: 2019

Radboud University Centre for Analytical Modelling in the Social Sciences and Humanities (RUCAM-SSH)

The Radboud University Centre for Analytical Modelling in the Social Sciences and Humanities (RUCAM-SSH) aims to bring together researchers who work on analytical models in the social sciences and humanities. It offers opportunities for researchers to present in seminars specific research questions and possible methodological approaches for analyzing them and fosters the discussion and collaboration on appropriate techniques, levels of abstraction and model assumptions for answering questions of societal and/or policy relevance. Other activities include:

  • Organization of international conferences on analytical modelling.
  • Employment of PhDs and/or postdocs to work on two specific topics, namely “imagined communities and the decline of democracy” and “unconditional basic income”.
  • Development of new course modules and/or programmes on analytical modelling.

More information: Dr. F. Bohn
Faculties involved: Initiated by the Nijmegen School of Management. Also involved: Faculty of Science and Faculty of Social Sciences.
Project started in: 2019

Translate complex technical data to commonsense cognitive concepts

A large part of the societal impact of cognitive neuroscience hinges on its promise to deliver insight in ourselves: How do we learn? What is attention? Do we have free will? In order to deliver on this promise, complex technical data (EEG measurements, BOLD signals, reaction times) must be translated into commonsense cognitive concepts, such as ‘memory’, ‘attention’ or ‘decision’. A major problem for this translation is that commonsense cognitive concepts cannot be found in the brain, unambiguously. This leads to a number of questions that are currently high on the agenda of the philosophy of cognitive neuroscience:

  • Are commonsense cognitive concepts suitable for science?
  • Can the use of such concepts in cognitive neuroscience be systematized?
  • If this turns out to be problematic, how can cognitive neuroscience retain its societal impact?

This project develops a course for PhD candidates in cognitive neuroscience on these questions. It also aims to improve the so-called ‘foundations of cognition’ lecture series and to develop a grant proposal.

More information: Prof. dr. M. Slors 
Faculties involved: Initiated by the Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies
Project started in: 2018

Wonen in Nijmegen: cooperative programme on housing

‘Wonen in Nijmegen’ (‘Living in Nijmegen’) has been set up to create a long-term cooperative programme between Radboud University, the municipality of Nijmegen and all of the housing corporations in Nijmegen. The goal of the programme is to structurally combine the knowledge and expertise of the Nijmegen School of Management, the Faculty of Social Sciences, the housing corporations in Nijmegen and the municipality in one workplace. Focus areas are demography, living, real estate investments, civic engagement, mobility and long-term strategy development.

In this workplace, researchers and practitioners will give mutual input to local dilemmas and issues. Work will be done in the form of projects and data will be collected on location in Nijmegen for cross-domain analyses. The academic research will thus be enriched with the local knowledge of parties in Nijmegen and will enable us to contribute to the scientific debate on living and area development.

In addition, a mutual knowledge agenda will be built up so that the consortium can participate in diverse projects and requests (H2020, NWA, NWO, etc.).

More information: Prof. dr. ir. V.  Marchau
Faculties involved: Nijmegen School of Management, Faculty of Social Sciences.
Project started in: 2019

Multi-disciplinary master’s programme: Well-Being, Policy and Society

We all want to live well and be happy. Concerns about the economic and ecological crises, work pressure, depression and burnout lead to an increased societal interest in well-being. Over the past few decades scientific research into well-being has taken flight. The multi-disciplinary master’s programme Well-Being, Policy and Society is being developed to integrate this body of research into academic teaching.

Its aim is to educate students to contribute to society by promoting well-being through policy. Students will acquire state-of-the-art knowledge about well-being from economics, the humanities, medicine, the social sciences and beyond. They will learn to apply this knowledge in policy and practices to enhance the lives of individuals, the organizations in which they work and society at large. Thus, they will be equipped to take a role in organizations and governments to help these make better informed choices about well-being.

More information: Prof. dr. H. Thijssen and Dr. A. van Stee
Faculties involved: Faculty of Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies, Radboud University Medical Centre, Faculty of Arts and Nijmegen School of Management.
Project started in: 2018

BIODISC: Changing Discourse on Biodiversity in the EU

More information about this project will be added later...

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