Research window Inclusive Society

Movement and a positive relation with one own body are of great importance to our well-being. In the last few decades, psychomotor therapy (PMT) has developed an important and wide range of movement- and body-oriented interventions. They are widely used when well-being and quality of life are under pressure due to psychosocial or psychiatric problems. The research within our professorship of Movement, Health and Well-being focuses on the effectiveness and working mechanisms of these different movement- and body-oriented interventions and the diagnostic and research instruments needed to accurately support indication and evaluation of therapy.

Some of our projects are:

• Sexual trauma in persons with mild intellectual disability: Psychomotor diagnostics and intervention
• Psychomotor therapy for patients with chronic pain
• The power of water: The contribution of water specific therapy to improve balance, aquatic skills and interaction in children with autism spectrum disorders

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Dr Jooske van Busschbach via email(opens in new tab)

The professorship of Human Movement, School and Sport conducts and supervises research into people's exercise and sports behaviour, particularly within the context of the school and sports associations. Our research is practice-oriented. This means that physical education teachers can directly apply the knowledge gained from research in their work. Examples of questions to be addressed are: How do children learn to move, and how do we improve motor learning with the use of new technologies? What is the social role and significance of sport? What is the relationship between the sports and physical education? What are the social effects of a certain sports policy?

Some of our projects are:

• Engaging socially vulnerable adults through sports: A study to understand and increase the societal impact of sport
• The master's eye: a study of how to increase the perceptual competence of physical education teachers
• Swimming lessons of the future

Want to know more? Contact Professor Ivo van Hilvoorde via +31 88 469 9162 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

The professorship of Constructive Journalism conducts research on how journalism can contribute to important social issues in a changing society: stimulating inclusion, tolerance and understanding, depolarization, facilitating involvement and trust among citizens. Constructive journalism uses a solution-oriented, action-oriented and future-oriented approach to news that is relevant to individuals and society. Research focuses on challenges for the profession, features of and framing in the news product, and the impact news has on the public and society.

Some of our projects are:

• Inclusiveness in informative television programmes during elections
• Effects of a constructive approach on the way millennials experience the news
• Influence of inspiring and hopeful perspectives in news on people’s information processing and problem awareness

Want to know more? Contact Professor Liesbeth Hermans via +31 88 469 7394 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

The professorship of Mental Health Care and Society has both feet firmly planted in the middle and is actively involved in practice. This chair investigates how to prevent the neglect of vulnerable people with, for example, mental or addiction problems. Such neglect should be spotted in time, so that counselling or treatment can be initiated. This requires a stronger connection and cooperation of professionals, citizens and organizations. Experiential knowledge is the basis for good care and services. Our researchers mainly focus on the connection between psychiatric and structural social problems.

Some of our projects are:

• Experience-wise
• Protected living in motion 
• Deployment of experience experts in projects for persons with disturbed behaviour

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Dr Alie Weerman via +31 6 5753 9885 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

The number of people living with dementia in the Netherlands is increasing rapidly. Many people with dementia live in their own homes, and we therefore have more and more contact with people with dementia in our direct environments. Not only the (future) care professionals, but also within the family, circle of friends, in the neighbourhood, at an association or in shops. Our research group Living Well with Dementia mainly focuses on people’s abilities, rather than on the limitations and challenges posed by the disease. Important themes in the work of our research group are therefore: preserving autonomy, inclusion, participation, dignity, well-being and meaning(fulness?). In our research projects, often in the form of participatory action research, the researchers work closely with various dementia care stakeholders including people with dementia and their informal carers, health and social care professionals, entrepreneurs, teachers, students, and policy officers. In this way, we aim to address their questions in the best possible way and arrive at solutions and products that can be easily implemented in practice and education.

Some of our projects are:

• ENABLE-DEM: Multi-stakeholder learning communities enabling the health and social care workforce to establish living environments that enable living well with dementia
• Access to care for migrants with dementia: required competences for nurses
• VR imagination: images of living well with dementia through VR glasses

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Dr ir Simone de Bruin via email(opens in new tab). 

The Professorship of Youth stands for healthy and inclusive upbringing of all children in a complex society. The research links up with the important social (parenting) questions from the fields of education, youth health care and youth aid. Children and young people are entitled to develop in a way that suits them, without being immediately placed outside the normal framework for special help and/or guidance. Our researchers work on the pedagogical context and pedagogical relationship around youth and family from the perspective of normalization and de-medicalization. 

Some of our projects are:

• Inclusive education: research into anxiety and depression among pupils
• Families with complex problems: knowledge transfer through a Serious Game
• Doing justice to children: children's rights in youth protection measures

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Dr Dorien Graas via email (opens in new tab)

In the research group of Client Perspective in Support and Care, our researchers map out all the stories and views of clients, both in words and in images. We translate these perspectives into customized care and support. Care that is created through the combined efforts of organizations, professionals, technology and citizens themselves. Our research group has seven research themes, which include research into resilient families, greater inclusion and care logistics. The professorhip focuses its research on the Flevoland area.

Some of our projects are:

• Studying with brain injury
• Inclusive work: room for customer motivation
• Intensive ambulatory systemic treatment at home

Want to know more? Contact our Professor, Dr Kitty Jurrius, via email(opens in new tab).

Currently the former Professorship of Leadership in Education and Development, with a focus on primary and secondary education, is undergoing a revision of its research agenda. With a new name, the Professorship of Urban Care & Innovation strives to broaden its horizon to also include child and youth care within its current research programme. The research topics of the past eight years (talent development with science and technology, pre-elementary education, reinforcement of language teaching, and leadership practices and school development) will be the starting point for a new research agenda which corresponds better with the current issues within the regional educational context. The professorship focuses mainly on the Flevoland area and the Amsterdam Metropolitan Area.

Current issues within the regional educational context that we might focus on include:

• Solutions to teacher shortages to ensure inclusive and equitable quality education
• Improvement of the cooperation between (tailored) education and child and youth care
• Improving the quality of basic skills, including language skills
• Involving neighbourhoods in the unhindered talent development of all learners, young and old

Want to know more? Contact our Director of Research: Dr Chiel van der Veen via email(opens in new tab) 

This professorship focuses on creating and realising inclusive learning environments that offer good education to all pupils and students. Inclusive learning environments are embedded in educational settings, in which all learners have the opportunity to learn and develop - doing justice to all goals of education, with a positive attitude towards learners' ambitions and respect for differences between learners. Our hallmark is to do this via purposefully designing inclusive teaching and learning activities and by researching the implementation of these via practice-based action research with all stakeholders involved, be it administrators, teachers, educational and care professionals, parents, and students. 

Some of our projects are:

• Multi-tiered Systems of Support using School-Wide Positive Behaviour Support as a vehicle towards inclusion
• Teacher professional development focusing on inclusive teaching using Lesson Study
• Inclusive teaching in higher education institutes

Want to know more? Contact our Professor Dr Sui Lin Goei via +31 88 469 8949 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).
Read more about the professorship 

The Professorship of Media & Civil Society is engaged in practice-oriented research on how journalistic practice can contribute (even) better to the quality of (co-)existence in a democracy. How, for instance, do you involve citizens in the news, so that it really comes to life for them? The key question is how news media can play a decisive role in increasing the social involvement of people - from all layers and subcultures of society - and in tackling social issues.

Some of our projects are:

• Reliability of regional news
• Young people and news 
• Roles, values and qualifications

Want to know more? Contact our Professor Dr Nico Drok via email(opens in new tab)

This professorship focuses on educational innovations that lead to sustainable and meaningful development and learning processes. In doing so, it is crucial to (re)design educational innovation in such a way as to optimize the opportunities of all pupils and students, with a special emphasis on situations where opportunities are at risk, such as low self-control, low levels of education of the parents, poverty, low prior knowledge and disabilities and impairments. Our research is divided into four lines of research: educational innovation for sustainable learning, E-didactics, digital (professional) agency and literacy and collaboration between schools and teacher education.

Some of our projects are:

• Teaching for digital literacy in primary education
• Computational thinking skills of young children working on programming tasks
• Design guidelines for part-time (online) bachelor curricula

Want to know more? Contact Professor Anneke Smits via +31 88 469 9933 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

How do you create a school environment that promotes learning and prevents behavioural problems? The PBS expertise centre provides schools with the necessary guidance.

(SW)PBS stands for (School Wide) Positive Behaviour Support. The aim of the PBS approach is to systematically tackle and prevent school-wide problem behaviour in schools. By training and supervising staff, carrying out practice-based research and developing and sharing knowledge and experience, our centre of expertise contributes to the implementation of (SW)PBS at a large number of schools. They work together in networks of schools in primary education, secondary education, special education and senior secondary vocational education (MBO).

Want to know more? Contact Esther Welbergen via email.(opens in new tab)

Research shows that differences between people, for example in competences, experience and views, within organizations and teams, lead to better performance and more innovation. But this is only successful if the focus is on making the most of those differences and creating an inclusive culture in which people can develop and feel valued. Our research group of Social Innovation, together with all our partners in the field, is investigating how this can best be achieved in practice. The goal is to achieve better performance, greater job satisfaction and optimal and sustainable use of all available human capital.

Some of our projects are:

• Gender include IT: keeping women in ICT
• Working on jobs for residence permit holders: 5 approaches to employment guidance
• Transition of young people with mental or psychiatric problems to work

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Sjiera de Vries via +31 88 469 6974 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

Sports pedagogy focuses on research, education and activities that will ensure that young people can practice sports safely and enjoyable in the future with supervision by qualified people. Aim of the professorship is a focus on unsportsmanlike behavior, such as aggression on the sports field, and creating awareness among physical education teachers of behavioral risks such as sexual harassment and bullying. Through our research we make a contribution to provide a sustainable and responsible youth sports climate, in both top level and recreational sports, and education.

Some of our projects are:

• Sexual harassment in sports in the Netherlands
• iCoachsKids (competent coaching of young athletes)
• Gold in education and top level sport

Want to know more? Contact our Professor: Dr Nicolette Schipper-van Veldhoven via +31 88 469 6041 (phone) or email(opens in new tab).

Good education in science and technology starts with good teachers. That is what TechYouFuture stands for. 

TechYourFuture makes young people aware of the role and impact of technology in our society. As a Centre of Expertise, we support technical (vocational) education in order to train more and better technicians in the future and to optimize the connection between education, training and technical companies. Together with the professional field, the Centre of Expertise carries out plenty of practice-based research and develops practical tools and methods for education and the technical labour market. 

Want to know more? Take a look at our website(opens in new tab)

The professorship of Urban Innovation focuses on inclusive and sustainable urban development. Its goal is to strengthen the economic, social and ecological connections between all those involved in urban environments (such as residents, administrators, entrepreneurs and civil society organizations). After all, the city and the urban area are where the great challenges of the future lie. There are economic and social issues at stake, and at the same time cities face major challenges in the fields of construction, sustainability and energy transition. Researchers and students work in field labs together with companies, regional organizations and residents. A field lab is also called a 'real-life testing ground'; innovative applications are tested directly in practice.

Some of our projects are:

• Minor and field labs
• New Almere Campus
• Waste hackathon for students

Want to know more? Contact Professor Dr. Evert-Jan Velzing via email(opens in new tab).