Project description
Parenting in times of environmental and geopolitical upheaval
Parents today are raising children in environmental and geopolitical crises. Current frameworks often fall short in understanding and supporting parenting in these uncertain times. The ERC-funded PARENTALHOPE project aims to develop a model, drawing on insights from the behavioural sciences on resilient parenting amid challenges such as war or illness. The model suggests parents can best support their children’s development when they recognise the severity of threats to their children’s future, tolerate uncertainty about achieving their goals, and trust their own ability and that of others to overcome obstacles. The project will rigorously test this model across Europe, using representative samples from countries facing various threats.
Objective
Today’s parents raise their children in times of environmental and geopolitical crises. Current scientific frameworks fall short in understanding and supporting parenting in times of such uncertainty. They are predominantly based on deficit models of adversity and fail to explain why many parents defy what can be predicted from these models.
PARENTALHOPE proposes a new model for understanding parenting in times of uncertainty. Building on insights from across the behavioural sciences on parents who show resilient parenting (e.g. in the face of war or illness), the model posits that parents raise children to the best of their abilities if four conditions are met: parents (1) acknowledge the severity of threat to their children’s future and (2) tolerate the uncertainty of whether their goals for their children will be met, while trusting that (3) they themselves and (4) others are able to overcome key barriers to achieve these goals. I posit that these four components together generate an experience of parental hope—a powerful resource that can be cultivated by targeting its underlying psychological levers.
I will use my transdisciplinary experience and international network to rigorously test this new model across Europe in representative samples from countries facing different types and levels of threat (i.e. climate change, geopolitical unrest). Moreover, I will crowdsource, forecast, and stringently test interventions to cultivate parental hope in an ambitious international tournament with committed partners in 30 European countries.
The proposed project ventures across disciplinary traditions and methodology, balances ecological and internal validity, and includes expertise from in- and outside the scientific community. The pay-off promises to be high: PARENTALHOPE will yield foundational understanding of what allows Europe’s 200 million families to thrive in uncertain times.
Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.
This project's classification has been human-validated.
Programme(s)
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
Multi-annual funding programmes that define the EU’s priorities for research and innovation.
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HORIZON.1.1 - European Research Council (ERC)
MAIN PROGRAMME
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Topic(s)
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Calls for proposals are divided into topics. A topic defines a specific subject or area for which applicants can submit proposals. The description of a topic comprises its specific scope and the expected impact of the funded project.
Funding Scheme
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.
HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants
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Call for proposal
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.
(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG
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Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.
1012WX Amsterdam
Netherlands
The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.