Ten research projects have now been granted funding in the international call Enhancing well-being for the future. Forte and the Swedish Research Council will jointly fund about 24 million SEK to Swedish researchers that participate in six of these projects.

The call Enhancing well-being for the future 2023 is a joint call organised by the cooperation networks NORFACE and CHANSE. 20 European research funding organisations from 18 countries are participating in the call, including Forte and the Swedish Research Council.

– I am very happy that it went so well for many Swedish applicants in this call, and that we in fact ended up with having Swedish members in six out of ten funded projects, says Aiga Giangiacomo, the research officer at Forte responsible for the call.

The research projects will investigate things like women’s online well-being, LGBTI+ youth well-being across Europe and welfare state responses to social risks in times of climate change. Ginevra Castellano, professor at Uppsala University, is coordinating one of the granted projects:

Social robot interacts with a child.

– Our project aims to advance knowledge on how linguistic abilities and the ability to successfully engage in social interactions affect children’s wellbeing and mental health. To achieve our objective, we are going to explore the use of social robots as new tools to measure children’s wellbeing and mental health in a school context. The project has a particular focus on vulnerable groups that are potential targets for preventative interventions, such as children with developmental language disorder and refugee children, she says.

More well-being, better mental health

About half of Fortes funding to this call comes from Fortes national research program about mental health. It aims to promote mental well-being and prevent mental ill-health through research and evidence-based knowledge.

– Our program vision; to build a robust, equitable and gender-neutral mental health across the population, aligns very well with the new research that will be addressed thanks to this call, says Lidija Kolouh, programme manager of Fortes national research program on mental health.

Swedish funded researchers and project titles:

  • Arvid Lindh, Stockholms universitet: Welfare state responses to social risks in times of climate change
  • Sara Thunberg, Örebro universitet: Women’s Online Wellbeing: a European Examination of digitalised violence against women
  • Malena Gustafsson, Stockholms universitet: LGBTI+ youth well-being across Europe: Imagined futures in turbulent times
  • Rebecca Boehme, Linköpings universitet: Targeting Social Well-being to Improve Transitions to School
  • Ginevra Castellano, Uppsala universitet: Measuring children’s wellbeing and mental health with social robots
  • Mikael Rostila, Stockholms universitet: A life course microsimulation perspective on multi-dimensional well-being for five European countries

Grant decision of the Swedish participants in the call »

All 10 projects selected for funding in the call (chanse.org) »