News

On Friday 17 June 2016, the UOC RE.CRI.RE. Research Team, consisting of Prof. Anastassios Matsopoulos, Ass. Professor of School Psychology in the Department of Preschool Education University of Crete and Polivios Psinas Associate Researcher, organised a two and half hours working seminar in collaboration with the local (Rethymnon) Director of Education to disseminate information about the project to 250 elementary education teachers.

The participants were mainstream teachers, specialty teachers (i.e special education, physical education, music) as well as headmasters and school counsellors. In this working seminar the UOC Research Team made a general presentation of the RE.CRI.RE. project focusing on its aims, goals, premises and structure. Also, the UOC case study entitled “Teachers’ evaluation in time of crisis: An opportunity for empowerment or a vulnerability factor? The challenge of policy making-A Greek case study” was thoroughly presented and was linked to the general rationale of the RECRIRE project.

At the end of the working seminar, a discussion with the group lead to fruitful conclusions and highlighted major and legitimate concerns of the local actors and stakeholders regarding the fundamental concept of the symbolic universes and the basic assumptions of RECRIRE and whether these are taken into consideration during the policy making process. Finally, the presentation aimed at giving incentives to the teachers about the potential benefits of their active involvement in the project and creating a network of volunteers and collaborators to participate in the research activities of the project starting in the Fall 2016. 20 teachers on the day of the seminar have expressed their desire to participate in the focus groups and gave us their contact information to further pursue our collaboration.

The working seminar was structured in two parts. The first part consisted of an introduction carried out by Professor Jorge Castro. Project’s main arguments and goals, phases, theoretical framework and ongoing results on the analysis of symbolic universes were briefly presented and summarized. The second part opened the debate to the participants, who could express their doubts, suggestions and points of view regarding different aspects of the project (goals, theoretical framework, methodology and attended outputs).

The participants:

• Florentino Blanco: Human Rights activist with Amnesty International. Psychology professor at Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
• Ramón del Castillo: Advisory Board member and also member of the European Cultural Parliament. Philosophy professor and Vice-Dean of Research at UNED.
• Pablo González: Economist and town councillor for PP (Spain’s right wing political party), Gijón local government (Asturias, in the North of Spain).
• Melania Moscoso: Socio-cultural anthropologist. Social activist concerning functional diversity issues. Professor at Universidad del País Vasco.
• Natalia Muñoz, town councillor for the new political party Ganemos in the city of Tres Cantos (Madrid); she comes from “The anti-austerity movement” in Spain, also referred to as “The 15-M Movement”, the “Indignants Movement” and “Take the Square”. Didactic activist concerning the shortcomings of Spanish Constitution, Treaty on European Union.
• Pablo Nicolás: Priest and also member of Catholic NGO “Cáritas”.
• Gabriel Santamaría: member of different ultra-conservative movements (catholic NGO’s such as “HazteOír” y “CitizenGo”) and team member for “Open Doors”, association working with refugees from Syria and Iraq.
• Honorio Velasco: Advisory Board member. Professor of Social Anthropology at UNED.

On 20 May the Aristotle University of Thessaloniki, partner of ALDA within the project Re.Cri.Re -Between the Representation of the Crisis and the Crisis of the Representation-, presented its design and aims at a working seminar at the Hellenic Center of Mental Health and Research.
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Evrinomy Avdi, Associate Professor in Clinical Psychology and Scientific Coordinator of Re.Cri.Re. on behalf of Aristotle University, together with her colleagues Anna Mylona and Ifigeneia Koutri, Associate Researchers, introduced the rationale of the project, described its goals, and presented the first results of Working Package 3.

Representatives from the Hellenic Center of Mental Health and Research and the Shelter for Abused Women, as well as representatives of other local stakeholders attended the event with great interest. A discussion was started regarding the effects of the economic crisis on Greek citizens’ life and its implications for mental health practices and service provision, as well as the links between the social-economic crisis in Greece and the demographic characteristics of the vulnerable population seeking professional help for psychological problems in recent years. Within this framework, Re.Cri.Re. was seen as helpful in suggesting innovative ways to conceptualize citizens’ changing psychosocial needs.

At the end of the seminar possible ways in which local stakeholders could get further involved in the project were presented, and all participants expressed their intention to support the progress of Re.Cri.Re by completing the ‘Views of Context’ questionnaire created in its framework.

If you also want to contribute to the success of the project, fill in and disseminate this questionnaire on how people represent the space they live in and how these representations are linked to their way of thinking and feeling. It is completely anonymous and only takes ten minutes to complete!

Questionnaire in all languages

A working seminar was organised at the Aix Marseille Université (France), on Thursday 28th Avril. A small number of cultural and social association members were invited to the seminar, with the aim of introducing RE.CRI.RE to participating members and to stimulate to fill. The seminar started with a detailed introduction by Alfonso SANTARPIA (associate professor at Aix-Marseille Université and member team of RE.CRI.RE in France) on the construction of European Identity. Firstly, he highlighted mythological dimension (for example, Europe’s myth or the history of the European Flag), philosophical and social dimension of the identity. Secondly, he focused his speech on several crises in Europe (immigration and Greek situation . Finally, after these introductions, He provided a detailed overview of the aims and details of RE.CRI.RE, with particular focus on the questionnaire VOC. This strategy has been used to mobilize people to fill in the questionnaire VOC and tests, important tools for the project.

There was in the group, Carole Le Cloîérac (Ingénieur d’études CNRS, Institut d’ethnologie méditerranééenne, européenne et comparative). She highlighted crucial role of the trans-disciplinary approach in the construction of the work packages.
The presentations were followed by detailed and opened discussion on French identity and European identity. There was a critique point on the French vote concerning the referendum in the 2005 where French people showed their opposition to the European project.

Useful links:
Poster

The social and economic crisis faced in last years challenged European countries and territories, in many ways: welfare systems, European identities, relations between regions and generations became more fragile.
The crisis challenges our tools for understanding reality, the possibility to build meanings and representations. In some cases, such as in some Italian areas, “crisis” is something durable: the prolonged inability to reverse the decline.
The “local” is still the ground where communities and policies mainly face the crisis, in positive or negative ways.
During the working seminar, three different research experiences will be presented and debated, in order to exchange methodologies and results concerning the role of policies in local development strategies.

The starting point will be the project HORIZON2020 – RE.CRI.RE. – Between the representation of the crisis and the crisis of the representation. RE.CRI.RE. explores the changes occurred in local cultures in Europe, in order to produce tools for policy-makers.
The premise of RE.CRI.RE. project is that local cultures may highly affect the effectiveness of policy implementation. Nevertheless, they are often a hidden field, unexplored or even totally ignored. Local cultures mediate the construction of meanings: which tools we have to know them and to include this knowledge in policy-making? RE.CRI.RE. project will be presented as a tool to approach public policies taking into account territorial analysis and local cultures analysis.

Secondly, during the seminar will be discussed the evaluation phase of policies, paying special attention to the ways in which “localities” build their own development path, interacting with higher levels of governance (regional, national and European). The project R.EV.E.S. – Reverse EValuation to Enhance local Strategies is part of the national strategy “Actions of support of the National System of Evaluation and of the Evaluation Teams” for the Cohesion Programme 2007-2013, implemented by FORMEZ PA.
Special focus will be devoted to Melpignano (LE, Italy) a Municipality in which policy-makers developed an effective strategy related to commons.
Thirdly, two members of GSSI (Gran Sasso Science Institute) will present the National Strategy for Inner Areas, in which they are involved as evaluators. The implementation of the strategy, goals definition and involved actors will be presented, together with local strategic documents.

The seminar is devoted to researchers, professors, students, PhD students interested in urban and regional studies, territorial policies, local cultures analysis and interdisciplinary approaches.

Useful links:
Playbill and Presentation

Τhe Genetic Social Psychology Lab of the Department of Psychology at the University of Cyprus hosted an event entitled “Social Representations of Migrants and Refugees in the Greek-Cypriot Media” on Wednesday, 27 April, 2016 during which the public was informed about the goals and preliminary findings of the RE.CRI.RE project.

Dr. Irini Kadianaki (Project Scientific Coordinator) introduced the RE.CRI.RE project and Drs. Maria Avraamidou and Maria Ioannou, and Elisavet Panagiotou presented the preliminary findings. Three external speakers contributed substantially to the event; Dr. Fabienne Baider (UCY) presented the rationale and preliminary findings of the Research Program C.O.N.T.A.C.T. which focuses on hate crime (Creating On line Network, monitoring Team and phone App to Counter hate crime Tactics”) in 10 different countries. Nathalie Alkiviadou, human rights expert and Head of Aequitas NGO presented legal aspects of hate speech as a crime across different contexts. Giorgos Kakotas from the Office of the Ombudsman discussed its Office’s mandate and efforts towards eliminating racism in the local media. Dr Charis Psaltis of the Department of Psychology (UCY) coordinated the event.

More than forty people including researchers, academics, NGO representatives, and students, joined the event and actively participated in the Questions and Answers session (Q&A) and the discussion that followed the presentations.

Useful links:
Press Release
Programme (Greek version)

A working seminar was organized in Malta on 25 April, with the objective of communicating to the academic world, policy makers, citizens and all stakeholders across Europe the outcomes and expected results of the project RE.CRI.RE.
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On Monday 25 April, the University of Malta organised a working seminar at the Ministry of Social Dialogue, Consumer Affairs and Civil Liberties in Malta. A wide range of stakeholders were invited to the seminar, with the aim of introducing Re.Cri.Re to participating members. The seminar started with a brief introduction by Dr Sammut, outlining the aims, followed by presentations from Dr Silvan Agius and Dr Myrna Azzopardi from the Ministry, who outlined their work regarding a national strategy for integration in Malta, which fits the aims of Re.Cri.Re. Following these presentations, Dr Sammut provided a detailed overview of the aims and details of Re.Cri.Re, with particular focus on the research questions being addressed in this project and the aims to articulate a three-tier policy-making framework that can target European, national & regional policies. These aims correspond with those adopted by the Ministry as well as various other stakeholders dealing with a number of challenges facing Maltese society at present, such as NGOs working with migrants. The presentations were followed by detailed discussion of the present social & political challenges facing European societies, with particular emphasis on Maltese society.

Participants agreed to meet anew to discuss the findings of the empirical studies once these are completed and to devise relevant policy recommendations that could cater to the diversity of the stakeholders represented in the working seminar.

The RE.CRI.RE project was presented during a public event open to stakeholders and citizens. Prof. Terri Mannarini, partner of the project on behalf of the University of Salento, prof. Fabio Pollice, Director of the Department of History, Society and Human Studies of the University of Salento, dr. Alessandro Delli Noci, city Councillor for the municipality of Lecce and dr. Gabriella Morelli, Founder of the association “Diffondere idee di valore” (“Ideas worth spreading”) engaged in a stimulating discussion about the interchange between academic research and public policies.

During the event, the research framework of RE.CRI.RE. project was described and preliminary results were illustrated, thereby stimulating a fruitful debate which addressed how social and psychological research can serve the purpose of planning effective public policies. A major attention was devoted to the topic of social innovation, on the basis that the changes occurred in contemporary societies demand for innovative responses to social and collective needs. The “Lecce Social Innovation City” project, promoted by the municipality of Lecce, was also showcased to the audit and some interesting links were established between the two projects. Reflecting upon the local cultures and the way people represent the world where they live in can provide useful hints to practice social innovation hence promoting community well-being.

Useful links:
Playbill
Brochure

Between 22th-26th April, Professor Sergio Salvatore from ISBEM, the Euro Mediterranean Scientific and Biomedical Institute, member of ALDA, visited the Bulgarian partners of Re.Cri.Re project at the New Bulgarian University (NBU) to hold joint activities and showcase the key methodological pillars of the project.
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Prof Sergio Salvatore was interviewed at the Bulgarian National Radio and participated as a speaker in a public lecture on “European crisis and European Youth” at NBU, as well as in the conference “Crisis, contestations, mobilisations”. The latter, held at the French Institute of Sofia, focused on a reflection upon hot topics linked with the EU and Euroscepticism, regimes, parties and political elites, populism and radical , as well as citizen mobilisation and protest movements.
Similar phenomena often arise in crisis situations, as the one our continent is currently facing. Crises can be defined as the difficulties encountered by actors, institutions and established systems in facing change and the related political, economic and social consequences. In such cases, it is fundamental to understand the deep meaning of such shifts, in order for policies to be adapted to the new situations and therefore become more effective – which is precisely the aim of Re.Cri.Re.
Re.Cri.Re is a three-year project funded under the call “Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies” in the framework of EU Programme Horizon 2020. ALDA, in cooperation with a consortium of 15 universities across Europe, launched it in May 2015 with the objective to analyse the symbolic background of European societies and the impacts of the recent socio-economic crisis on them, in order to frame better policies at the local, national and European level.

Contribute to the success of the project by filling in and disseminating Re.Cri.Re’s questionnaire on how people represent the space they live in and how these representations are linked to their way of thinking and feeling. The questionnaire is anonymous and only takes ten minutes to complete!

Questionnaire in all languages

The activity will be held in the premises of the Committee of the Regions on 24 February 2016 as a public event in the framework of the Horizon 2020 funded project RE.CRI.RE – Between the Representation of the Crisis and the Crisis of Representation.
Sixteen Universities and Research Centres, covering 13 European countries, are working together to investigate what kind of social identity change is occurring in Europe in time of crisis.

The three-year project, funded under the call Europe in a changing world – Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies, started in May 2015. It aims at analysing the symbolic background of European societies and the impacts of the socio-economic crisis on them, in order to frame better policies at local, national and European level. The event will therefore be an occasion to share the first outcomes of the project and discuss them with representatives of civil society, policy-makers and experts of social sciences.

To make sure you can access the Committee of the Regions, please register by 20 February 2016 at the latest.

We are looking forward to meeting you and also kindly require to disseminate this opportunity among your contacts.

Useful links:

Registration form
Agenda of the event