Learning in emotionally vulnerable people

Project Information

LEARNVUL

Grant agreement ID: 952464

DOI

10.3030/952464

Project closed

EC signature date 30 June 2020

Start date 1 October 2020

End date 30 September 2023

Funded under

• Twinning of research institutions

Total cost

€ 900 000,00

EU contribution

€ 900 000,00

Coordinated by

UNIVERSITATEA DE VEST DIN TIMISOARA
Romania

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - LEARNVUL (Learning in emotionally vulnerable people)

Reporting period: 2022-01-01 to 2023-09-30

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

In the current Twinning grant, a collaborative network has been set up between West University of Timisoara (UVT) and two internationally leading research institutions: University of Milan Bicocca (UNIMIB) and Ghent University (UGENT). The topic of collaboration belongs to the Psychology field, combining elements of personality psychology, learning psychology, and experimental psychopathology (clinical psychology). More specifically, we focus on neuroticism, a non-pathological personality trait (the personality part). We try to explain why neuroticism is a risk factor for mental health issues by revealing some information processing biases (the clinical part). It is done within the experimental tradition of evaluative conditioning by looking at how people process valence information and attach valence to newly encountered stimuli (the learning part).

The grant aims to enhance the scientific performance and research management capacity of the West University of Timisoara (UVT) by twinning two highly performant teams with a host team with the potential for scientific performance through joint research activities. We have set three specific objectives. Two of them are raising the scientific profile of early-stage researchers (O1) and the more experienced researchers - postdocs and mid-career researchers (O2). The third objective has a different purpose, namely, to exploit the transfer of knowledge, particularly regarding research management, to enhance the coordinating institution's scientific capacity (O3).

After 36 months of activities in the project, all three objectives have been achieved. Early-stage researchers benefited from mentorship, short-term mobility, and summer school courses to enhance their scientific capacity and produce high-quality manuscripts. Experienced researchers benefited from the exchange of good practices, editorial services for a special issue, and grant writing supervision. These achievements have been shared at the department and institutional levels to some extent. Some of the recommendations have been upscaled at the institutional level.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

The project contains five work packages (WP).

WP1 implies the overall management of the LEARNVUL project and involves three main tasks: (a) coordination of meetings and the LEARNVUL Consortium; (b) tasks planning and coordination to ensure the quality of deliverables; and dealing with administrative, financial, and internal communication. All deliverables have been accomplished.

WP2 transfers the knowledge and experience of the partners to the early-stage researchers to support scientific excellence and increase the impact of research on the topic of interest. WP2 implied three tasks: (a) the mentoring of the early-stage researchers through joint research activities, (b) the planning and deployment of the first summer school, and (c) the organization of short-term mobilities for the early-stage researchers. All early-stage researchers received mentorship from experienced researchers in planning and conducting some research activities. Two 5-day summer schools took place in 2021 and 2022. All deliverables were accomplished. Educational materials (video materials) were uploaded on YouTube.

WP3 aims to develop institutional research management support and increase the scientific visibility of (more experienced members). WP3 implied four tasks: (a) the organization of an in-person expert meeting, (b) mentorship activities for experienced researchers through editing a special issue and grant writing supervision, (c) staff exchanges and auditing the research practice; (d) upscaling efforts through workshops and meetings with people with research management responsibilities. All deliverables have been achieved, including a special issue in the journal Collabra: Psychology (WoS IF = 3,02).

WP4 mainly refers to enhancing and promoting the impact of the obtained results through dissemination and communication. In this 36-month project, we ended up with 8 WoS publications and an additional four manuscripts submitted or in progress. All these publications are open-access and have proper acknowledgment. Likewise, members of the three teams participated in many conferences to present their results, including three joint symposia held at highly-regarded international conferences (ECP Madrid, ESCON Milano, and ICPS Bruxelles). For online communication, we set up a website for the project, a Twitter account, and a YouTube channel. We designed and printed leaflets, presentation maps, and a rollup banner for offline communication. All planned deliverables have been achieved.

WP5 was included during the contract agreement preparatory phase to address ethical requirements. It contained additional work explaining the measures and processes developed in the project to ensure proper handling of ethical issues raised by activities implemented. This only deliverable included the Ethics self-assessment requirement.

Overall, through this project we achieved: (a) scientific and networking advancement (8 publications + 4 manuscripts, 10+ conference participations, 1 expert meeting, 1 special issue; (b) research capacity-building (grant writing supervision, 29 materials uploaded on YouTube from summer schools; 8 one-month mobilities for early-stage researchers; 1 handbook of research management best practices). Based on excellent cooperation between the three institutions, a follow-up exploitation plan has been developed, to maintain and even extend the collaboration among partners.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

This project could reveal potential explanations for why some emotionally vulnerable people are at a higher risk for mental health problems. The UVT was the primary beneficiary of this consortium. The working experience accumulated during the joined research activities, expert meetings, summer schools, short-term mobility, staff exchange, and state-of-the-art laboratory equipment allowed the Romanian team to become more competitive and productive in the field. Moreover, through the dissemination activities, they had the chance to publish in leading journals in the area, increasing their chances of securing further EU or national research grants.

The main quantitive results achieved at the end of the project are:
- 8 accepted scientific publications in WoS journals;
- 9+ communications at scientific conferences;
- 2 summer schools
- 1 expert meeting
- 1 co-edited special issue of an international journal

Qualitatively, the project's primary outcome consists of bringing doctoral training to the international standard for early-stage researchers and setting up relevant career opportunities for their research careers. For more experienced researchers, the twinning exercise allowed them to improve their mentoring abilities for future generations of doctoral students and their research management skills. These benefits are in line with the primary purpose of the Twinning exercise. To reduce the existing gap between leading scientific groups and widening groups and break the tendency of research-intensive institutions to collaborate in close groups by integrating the UVT team as a valuable partner. In addition, through some upscaling efforts, some of the recommendations made through this project have been adopted and implemented at the institutional level.

SummerSchool Illustration

Leaflet Illustration