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Jacobs University receives about 700,000 Euros for research projects on the influence of job-related mobility on cognitive and personal adaptivity in the course of the lifespan as well on the appraisal of experience in older employees as an innovation resource for companies. The two 3-year projects, which will start in October, are part of the Volkswagen Foundation’s research initiative “New Perspectives on Aging” with 12 research projects and a total funding of 3.6 million Euros.
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“We are very happy and proud to have achieved this funding commitment and regard it as an acknowledgement of our successful research in a field of highest societal, political, and economical relevance,” says Ursula M. Staudinger, Jacobs University Vice President and Dean of Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development. Of all 90 applicants that participated in the Volkswagen Foundation’s call for proposals, Jacobs University did not only manage to secure the highest project funds but was also the only research institution to be granted two projects.
Prof. Staudinger, together with Ben Godde, Professor of Neuroscience and Human Performance, and Klaus Schömann, Professor of Sociology, will cover the topic “Mobility and developmental benefit: Does job-related mobility have a cumulative effect on the development of cognitive and personality adaptivity?”. This project is funded with 502,000 Euros by the Volkswagen Foundation. Plasticity of cognitive performance so far has mainly been analysed scientifically under lab conditions. Using longitudinal data as well as interviews and cognitive tests the research team therefore wants to explore whether voluntary job-related mobility is conductive to an improved cognitive development during adult and old age. Moreover, the project will focus on the effects on personality development, trying to answer such questions as to whether openness for new experiences and readiness to take risks can be maintained longer in the course of the lifespan because of mobility.
“Discovering the wealth of experience: Cognitive innovation resources of older employees“ is the topic of Prof. Christian Roßnagel’s project, which is funded with 184,600 Euros by the Volkswagen Foundation. The organizational psychologist will pursue the rather surprising question whether the routinization that develops with increasing job and life experience, is actually enhancing the innovative potential of a company rather than impeding it, as is often presumed according to negative stereotypes regarding older people. The underlying project hypothesis assumes that increasing routinization frees up cognitive resources, which can be alternatively employed – for instance for the effective implementation of innovative measures and procedures – if the context of the work situation offer the respective opportunities and encouragement.
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The Vokswagen Foundation's research initiative »New perspectives on aging« |
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The Volkswagen Foundation’s research initiative »New perspectives on aging« was launched in August 2006 as part of its funding program »Future Issues of our Society« with a call for research proposals regarding the individual as well as the societal angle of aging. The scientists were expected to develop original project approaches, especially involving the group of people concerned, while at the same time proposing sound methodology to explore the developmental potentials of an aging society.
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