The 3WE project investigates the processual well-being of female workers in foreign financed firms and farms in Ethiopia. Preliminary insights show that women view these jobs as a temporary solution until they transition to better jobs and self-employment. Their well-being is embedded in the social relationships within and beyond their workplace. Interviews with employers and managers indicate a widespread compliance culture to international standards on working conditions which comes at the expense of more effective investments in culturally sensitive foreign and local managers, human resource policy on worker retention and upskilling, and effective multi-stakeholder engagement.

The use of artificial intelligence is changing medical practice. AI is already being applied, but ethical orientation towards responsible development and use of AI in medical decision-making urgently needs to be strengthened. The RAIDIO research team focuses specifically on new AI applications in the field of image driven diagnostics (pathology and radiology) and uses research methods from the fields of ethics, medical sociology, narrative medicine and history. With this interdisciplinary approach, the researchers study changing notions of trust, responsibility, expertise, and patient perspectives in the development of guidelines for responsible AI in the practice of medical decision-making.

In het tijdperk van laatkapitalistische globalisering zijn romans niet alleen kunstwerken, maar ook goederen die geconsumeerd worden door lezers over de hele wereld. Zorgt de opkomst van de ‘wereldroman’ voor lezers die in staat zijn tot meer begrip en solidariteit voor mensen uit verre oorden? Of versterken het soort boeken die wereldwijd bekend worden alleen maar de bestaande vooroordelen van lezers? Deze interdisciplinaire studie onderzoekt de reacties van lezers uit vier verschillende landen op vier wereldromans. De studie draagt bij aan literaire debatten over de evolutie van het genre, als ook aan sociaalwetenschappelijke debatten over de impact van culturele globalisering.

The granted three projects of this NWA-call span the continuum from chemicals, materials and products and their safety, sustainability and circularity during their entire life cycle from design to waste. Here, we will synthesize the knowledge and tools developed, and in this way facilitate interaction between the domains of chemicals, materials or products. This Phase II BenignSynthesis project will as far as possible further generalize, integrate and simplify methods developed in the three Phase I projects, aiming for an overarching Safe,Sustainable&Circular-by-Design approach for the Chemicals-Materials-Product continuum in which the life cycle of design, production, consumption and waste is accounted for.

This project investigates the performance and narration of masculinities of involuntary returned Senegalese men, thus contributing to the study of changing gender relations and migration. In Senegal, masculine forms of honour depend on the ability to pay bride-wealth, marry and provide for one’s extended family. Yet marriage, and thus becoming an ‘adult man’, is increasingly unobtainable due to the lack of economic opportunities. Migration can increase the social standing of men and be a solution to this crisis of masculinity. Yet European migration governance focuses on returning unwanted migrants to their country of origin, with Senegalese men representing a large number of those returned. Little is known about the socio-cultural consequences of such returns. How do young Senegalese men navigate, perform and narrate their masculinities in a context of involuntary return migration? This understanding can lead to a better reintegration of migrants and highlight possible unintended consequences of European migration policies. This research is innovative because it combines approaches that have heretofore been employed separately; using an intersectional approach, ethnography, the study of popular culture and biographical work to investigate the relationship between masculinities and migration. Masculinity is not only a performative praxis but also narrated. In life-narratives and popular culture different forms of masculinities are negotiated. This research adds an empirical case to the conceptual debate within gender studies on agency, investigating this in a setting where masculinities have hardly been analysed. I question the often calculative understanding of migration by focusing on the (im)possibilies of socio-cultural transformations.