Affiliated projects and partners

Scholars from Institutions for Open Societies (IOS), as well as the staff involved, take part in numerous research projects on various topics close to IOS and often in collaboration with universities from all over the world. They also work with organisations and professionals outside the scientific field. Here, we proudly list several projects linked to IOS.

 

Projects developed by IOS:

  • The Comprehensive Well-being Index

    The Comprehensive Well-being Index (BWI) is a measurement developed by Utrecht University and Rabobank for human wellbeing in a broad sense of the term. Serving as an alternative to GDP, BWI measures eleven dimensions as indicators for a country’s welfare, such as income, environment, and safety, among others.

  • YODA for IOS

    YODA for IOS enables scholars to share, archive and publish research data. It is suitable for data of all kinds, both qualitative and quantitative, public as well as highly sensitive and ranging from a single file to terabytes. By using the YODA for IOS, scholars automatically meet the requirements of stakeholders, like organizations as NWO and H2020 regarding data management.

Education developed by IOS:

  • PPE (Philosophy, Politics and Economics)

    The interdisciplinary undergraduate program Philosophy, Politics, and Economics (PPE) serves the growing need for a plural perspective on complex societal issues. Utrecht’s PPE programme is the first in the world to add History to its curriculum.

Projects developed and carried out by IOS:

  • Institutions for Collective Action

    Institutions for Collective Action is an initiative focused on the study of social change induced by institutions as opposed to riots, demonstrations, and mass violence. The message underlying this initiative is that institutions for collective action can be a suitable way to govern resources sustainably and efficiently, depending on the type of resource and the circumstances.

  • SCOOP

    SCOOP is a research and training centre dedicated to the interdisciplinary study of sustainable cooperation as a key feature of resilient societies. The centre connects research groups from sociology, psychology, history, philosophy, public administration, research methods, and statistics.

  • Agape: commitment to wellbeing of employees

    Researchers from our Future of Work hub, together with Maastricht University, have studied how much organisations commit themselves to the well-being and development of employees. They did so, by questioning the general director and the chairperson of the works council. The research was conducted in 2020 in over 3000 commercial companies with more than a hundred employees. 

  • bEU Citizen

    The bEU Citizen research project seeks to study European citizenship from a set of distinctive perspectives. Centered around the question ‘why don’t Europeans realise their rights as European citizens?’, bEU Citizen sets out to identify, investigate, discuss and ameliorate the barriers to the active use of rights by European citizens.

  • Coordinating for Life

    The Coordinating for Life research project offers a systematic investigation of societal resilience concerning hazards, using rural societies in Western Europe in the period 1300-1800 as a testing ground. The project’s historical approach is aimed to increase our insight into the relative performance of societies and gain a better understanding of a critical determinant of human wellbeing.

Projects supported by IOS scholars 

  • Sustainable Finance Lab

    The Sustainable Finance Lab offers a platform for ideas and discussion concerning a stable economy that serves humanity and its environment, serving as a bridge between academics and practice.

  • WINIR

    WINIR is a global network that brings together researchers from multiple academic disciplines to study the nature, function, evolution, and impact of institutions. WINIR’s primary emphasis is on those institutions and organisations that deeply affect the production and distribution of wealth and the means of human wellbeing.

  • The Prof. F. de Vries Foundation

    The Prof. F. de Vries Foundation is a Dutch foundation concerned with the development and diffusion of theoretical and policy-focused socio-economic knowledge. The Foundation organises lectures by prominent economists on topics with high societal relevance.

  • JOIN

    JOIN is a program concerned with the development and testing of new instruments and arrangements to enstrengthen participation of (vulnerable) youth and therefore the inclusivity and resilience of society.

  • Centre for Global Challenges

    The Centre for Global Challenges offers the platform for education and research on issues related to the contested global order, and for academic and societal debate about the global challenges the world is faced with today. The centre explores possible new insights at the intersections of four central research domains: human rights, conflict & security, sustainability and development & equity.

  • Urban Futures Studio

    Working at the intersection of science, art and policy, the Urban Futures Studio aims to understand the dynamics of change and expand the repertoire of techniques of futuring. Convinced that new thinking starts in crossovers and ‘soft spaces’, UFS actively initiates experiments to encourage promising meet-ups.

  • Datafied Society

    The Datafied Society research hub addresses societal challenges emerging from novel data practices in public governance and management, (public) media and public space and seizes opportunities for using data practices to foster citizenship, civic participation and creative production.