Happy Birthday INSIDE!

The Integrative Research Unit on Social and Individual Development (INSIDE) celebrated its 10^th birthday in June. To mark the occasion, INSIDE members were invited to a plenary meeting where Prof. Dieter Ferring, head of INSIDE, chronicled the unit’s achievements over the last 10 years.

Contributing to Luxembourg’s society

Starting out with 29 people in 2006, the unit continuously grew and now counts over 100 researchers from psychology, sociology, economics, educational sciences and social work.

Over the last years, INSIDE managed to establish and strengthen its position as a privileged partner and advisor to Luxembourg’s ministries and public administrations. Members are regularly called upon to establish reports and studies for national policy-makers covering subjects such as the situation of young people in Luxembourg, the status of the national child care system or public safety.

“We are proud that our research is strongly linked to Luxembourg’s society and that we can look back on a long-term collaboration with the national policy-makers.” explains Prof. Ferring in his speech. The unit provides expertise in key areas of social and individual development, such as health, subjective well-being, social and economic welfare and inequality.

Internationally recognized research

INSIDE researchers have also been very successful in generating international funding. The unit managed to acquire considerable funding both from competitive and contract-based research.

Three projects are currently funded by the European scheme Horizon2020: MOVE analyses cross-border geographic mobility of young people in the EU; MinD investigates mindful designing for people with dementia; Categorial Interception Project researches how generalisation and classification strategies link anxiety and interoception.

Research published by INSIDE members is consulted all over the world with Germany and the United States accounting for most downloads from the UL repository orbi.uni.lu followed by China, France and the United Kingdom. Six INSIDE researchers can also be found among the 20 most consulted authors from the University of Luxembourg on the same platform.

Prof. Ferring concluded his retrospective by thanking everyone for making INSIDE such a success story. He encouraged young researchers to be proud of their work and making their research and their profiles available to the international academic and research communities.