Objective
Education provides people with skills and resources that are important for many aspects of life, including health. Yet, despite substantial educational expansion, health inequalities remain a persistent challenge. The project FIELDS starts from the idea that in mass education systems, where more people attain higher levels of education, it is not only important how much education people have, but also what kind they choose. For instance, whether someone studies law, nursing, or engineering can shape life in very different ways. Surprisingly, study majors and vocational programmes have rarely been considered as factors influencing health. FIELDS investigates how and through which mechanisms fields of education shape health across the life course, moving beyond the well-known effects of educational level. Drawing on human capital and socialisation theory, it assumes that fields of education affect health through three main drivers: (1) opportunities to find gainful and healthy work, (2) tendencies to adopt health-promoting or harmful behaviours, and (3) the quantity and quality of social interactions. To examine these processes, FIELDS uses six of the world’s longest-running household panel surveys from Germany, the United States, the Netherlands, Switzerland, South Korea, and Australia. It will harmonise these data to conduct the first comparative life-course analyses linking field choices in youth to physical and mental health later in life and to examine how these links are mediated by work, behaviour, and social capital. Because individuals do not enter fields randomly but based on personal characteristics and structural constraints that also shape health, FIELDS applies a rigorous design using panel data, within-person estimation, statistical matching, and counterfactual mediation analysis to minimise bias. The project will open a new perspective on educational inequalities in health and help identify vulnerable groups for more effective interventions.
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.
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.
- medical and health sciences health sciences nursing
- social sciences sociology social issues social inequalities
- social sciences law
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Keywords
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)
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-2026-STG
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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.
96047 Bamberg
Germany
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.