Search

The objective of this project is to construct and validate a general methodology to analyse and describe long-term care (LTC) systems for older people in a European perspective. The individual aspects of the different emerging national models that currently address long-term care needs in Europe will be used to show how the links to health care services, the quality of LTC services, the incentives for prevention and rehabilitation, and the support for informal carers can be governed and financed to enhance structures, processes and outcomes of LTC systems.

Social scientists often use the metaphor of evolution to describe various kinds of transformation processes, e.g. economic. In this context political scientists have shown that newly emerging policy subsystems have a different structure to those that have been around for longer (see Michael Noweski, “Ausreifung von Poltikfeldern – Metapher oder Theorie?” WZB Discussion Paper SPI 2008-304 (> PDF), in German only). This can be seen very clearly in the case of health primary prevention. The expanding network features numerous new players, some of whom are largely unknown. Its structure is complex, polycentric and heterarchic. There is still little consensus about how tasks should be divided up among the participants.

The context within which academics work has been undergoing changes around the world, increasingly intensely over the past two decades as practices from New Public Management and the neoliberal agenda have entered the realm of science policy. To understand the impact of these changes and academics’ responses to them, we are undertaking an intergenerational and international study of why and how people become academics and why and how they leave academia.

Time Stability in Reducing the Risk of HIV Transmission among Homosexual Men in Eastern and Western Germany, 2010

A current challenge facing HIV prevention in Germany is developing appropriate HIV prevention services for vulnerable migrant communities. Meeting this challenge requires a close cooperation between researchers, service providers and migrant communities. This research project is investigating how locally-based participatory processes can be initiated and sustained for this purpose. The project is being conducted in cooperation with the Deutsche AIDS-Hilfe e.V. and stakeholders in various localities. The primary elements of the project are:

• A quantitative survey of the local AIDS service organisations regarding their prevention activities for immigrant communities, including current services and partnerships with other stakeholders
   

The European Quality of Life Survey is an international comparative survey project initiated by the “European Foundation for the Improvement of Working and Living Conditions”. For the survey’s second round the Foundation was looking for the assistance of experts to improve the survey’s data quality. On the one hand, it was intended to enhance the sampling procedure and the field work, and on the other hand to optimise the questionnaire.

In the last years new forms of citizen participation have been growing steadily across Latin America. New institutional designs that allow citizens to play a larger role on public issues have been implemented by governments, civil society organizations, and international agencies alike. Among such innovations, one finds an increasing number of forms of citizen engagement that rely on new information and communication technologies (ICTs). The potential of ICTs to increase participation seems clear, as it reduces the costs of time usually associated with participation. Using their own smartphones, citizens can assist local governments to set their policy agenda, as well as report crimes or infrastructure problems in their cities.

Both donating time and money play an important role in terms of citizens' responsibilities for the public interest. Comprehensive scientific results already exist with regard to civic engagement. However, donation behavior has only been cursorily examined in Germany. Only estimates of the amount of donations exist. The goal of the project was to undertake a thoroughgoing analysis on the donation topic and this was based on existing surveys. Simultaneously, and in light of the existing situation, methodological, organizational, and content suggestions for the creation of a continuous donation reporting and monitoring were submitted. The project is connected to research results on the third sector.

Increasing wordwide migration and the diminishing integration capacity of labour call for new answers to the challenge of ensuring a successful and systematic integration of groups of people who have come and will continue to come to Germany from abroad. In future, their participation in the work process and the reliance on ethnic networks will no longer suffice to ensure the social integration of such groups of migrants, if this process is left to its own devices. In view of the current labour market situation and the changes being made to the welfare state, more state control at all levels and in all spheres of life will be needed.

In recent times politics and science have used the term social exclusion to describe the risk of certain social groups of being excluded from participation in social life. Social participation in this context is widely defined to include economic, social, cultural and political aspects. Uncertain working conditions and unemployment are key parts of this process, although there is as yet no consensus on definitions and dimensions of social exclusion, and empirical verification is still under way.