Current research projects

2. The EduCom project:

The research profile EduCom is a broad framework which is intended to accommodate concepts and theories from the six research groups of the School of Education and Communication at Jönköping University. The aim is to integrate the school expertise in education and communication, creating a new combined and interdisciplinary profile that promotes educommunication research to respond to local and global challenges of social sustainability.

2023-2026

3. A European consortium to determine how complex, real-world environments influence brain development (ENVIRO-DEV) 

EU Cost Action project:

The early years of brain development are critically influential for life-long outcomes. During early childhood, neurodevelopmental conditions emerge and vulnerabilities for longer-term problems are sown. Homes, schools and neighbourhoods shape children’s life chances, interacting with individual differences in cognition and behaviour to determine access to resources and quality of life. However, because almost all current research measures behaviour and brain function by taking children away from these natural environments into controlled lab settings, our knowledge of how early life settings shape development is surprisingly limited. We understand very little about the mechanisms through which specific environmental features impact development (e.g. the effects of variation in noise, clutter, social interaction etc); how these vary across European nations; and how they interact with neurodiverse learning styles. This limits us from designing personalised practical interventions to tailor early environments for different individuals. Under this COST Action we shall create the infrastructure and networks to allow for transformative new approaches to quantifying variability in the early life physical and social environments experienced by children across the EU. We will bring together currently siloed areas of expertise across Europe in new methods for studying children in their natural habitats; new perspectives on cultural and neurodiversity; and new ethical and legal frameworks to support large-scale collaborative developmental science. Our network will be a partnership across European nations and with neurodiverse communities to enable our work to be underpinned by co-creation, ensuring we are harnessing state-of-the-art research efforts to generate meaningful and impactful real- world outcomes.

4. Arctic Focus on Research (Norwegian Research Council)

The Arctic Research Centre for Children and Youth at Risk :

The Arctic Research Centre for Children and Youth at Risk aims to increase knowledge on how to strengthen the well-being and empowerment of children and young people by:

• Promoting research-based knowledge about the needs of vulnerable children and young people in relation to services in education and social work and child protection practices
• Researching how to improve cooperation between kindergartens, schools and teacher training institutions in small and medium-sized municipalities in Northern Norway
• Promoting rights-based and culturally adapted services for Sami children in relation to child protection
• Developing more creative, pedagogical skills in the education of school nurses who are to meet vulnerable children and young people
• Including the participation of vulnerable children and young people, and their families, in the professional education of teachers, child protection workers, social workers and school nurses

2024-2030