Lines of research

1. Community Action, Social Development and Educational Leisure

The Principal Investigator (PI) in this line of research is Dr Txus Morata.

The research goals are:

• To develop the model of social participation and community empowerment from a theoretic basis, generating tools and discourse for Social Education and Social Work professionals.
• To evaluate social and educational action programmes to improve the quality of life of people in situations of vulnerability and social exclusion.
• To analyse innovative policies and practices from the perspective of the social cohesion of territories..

2. Governance, Management and Social Policies

The Principal Investigator (PI) in this line of research is Dr Pere Mora.

The research goals are:

• To analyse the new management models of non-profit organisations (NPOs).
• To evaluate new relations between the non-profit sector and the public and private sectors.
• To develop entrepreneurial projects with social impact.

3. Ethics, professional responsibility and non-material needs

The Principal Investigator (PI) in this line of research is Dr Jesús Vilar.

The research goals are:

• To promote and implement ethical approaches and good practice in the day-to-day provision of socio-educational services to people, and to study people’s non-material needs.
• To promote new training methodologies that can prepare people to work in environments of uncertainty and to deal with ethical and non-material issues.
• To identify elements, spaces and forms of conflict management related to non-material needs (spiritual, religious, etc.) and ethical conflicts at socio-educational centres.

4. Social innovation and professional skills

The Principal Investigator (PI) in this line of research is Dr Paco López.

The research goals are:

• To identify emerging situations in social and educational action that imply challenges to the people and professionals involved in these situations. 
• To evaluate the strategies implemented in this type of situation as sources of innovation for intervention and for training professionals.
• To guide the design of social policies and the training and intervention of professionals in complex and changing environments.

5. Health and psychosocial wellbeing throughout the life cycle

The Principal Investigator (PI) in this line of research is Dr Isabel Torras.

The research goals are:

• To identify critical periods in the life cycle that require special attention as regards health and psychosocial wellbeing.
• To analyse scenarios and actors that can promote psychosocial wellbeing from the perspective of social work and social education.
• To evaluate socio-educational actions aimed at improving health and wellbeing.