Name Activity Psychology "department with education and research on:    Cognitive Psychology    Atypical development    Personality & Psychopathology    Diagnostics & Treatment    Clinical Experimental Psychology    Biological Psychology    Social Psychology    Work and Organizational Psychology    Methods in Psychology" Diversity "Koen VAN LAER" "The research of the unit is organized in three thematic clusters: diversity in employment relations and organizations, in education and in the Belgian society. Examples of research topics are inclusive diversity management practices, the relation between diversity and employment relations, pregnancy-related discrimination at work, work-family balance for female entrepreneurs, and entrepreneurship in ethnic minority communities.  Diversity in education includes research projects about the institutional and organizational mechanisms that create or successfully combat the educational gap between ethnic majority and minority students in schools and higher education.  Within the Belgian society, research is conducted about the perception of equal opportunities among the Belgian population and the integration of ethnic minorities in Flanders." "Citizenship, Equality & Diversity (CED)" "The research group focuses on issues of inequality and equality in relation to the diversity characterising our contemporary society, mainly within a political science frame, but also connecting to social and human science more broadly. Our research is driven by a concern for detecting, analysing and understanding mechanisms and causes of inequality and by the question of how to define and promote the equality of social groups in our contemporary society. This central topic brings our different research projects together and is also the common ground for the future research of the group. This said, we are aware of the normative undertone underlying the research agenda and therefore consciously choose to keep the understanding of what should be seen as inequality and what has to be understood by equality open for discussion. Important in our research on inequality and equality is the concept of diversity. Issues of inequality and equality are studied with respect to the socio-demographic diversity characterising society, unpacking the notion of the citizen, and how the lack of recognition of diversity or a specific understanding of diversity (re)produces inequality. Research focuses on both one and more aspects of diversity and how this relates to axes and processes of inequality, whereby particular attention is paid to issues of intersectionality. While the research initially concentrated on issues of gender, the focus has been broadened to other mechanisms of discrimination and exclusion, including LGBT, ethnicity and disability. A last central concept in our work is that of citizenship, embedding the concept of social groups in a relation to the state, its institutions, practices and policies. Citizenship refers to the political and policy dimension in issues of diversity and (in)equality, and the way in which politics and policies (re)produce equality and inequality. The broad lines of current research projects of the group comprise: • diversity and equality in and through processes and stages of political representation • equality and diversity in and through public policies and the underlying processes • equality as a structural component of society" "Political Science" "The Department of Political Science groups all the people involved in political science teaching and research at the Vrije Universiteit Brussel. The Department organizes a Bachelor in Political Science (in Dutch), a Master in Political Science (in Dutch) and it participates in the organization of an Advanced Master in European Integration (in English). Most of the research conducted in the Department fall under four major themes: Political participation and Representation The way in which citizens and the state are linked to each other is the topic of several research projects. Most of these are conducted within the framework of the Interuniversity Attraction Pole PARTIREP. Projects in the Department pay special attention to political representation, the effect of electoral systems on political behavior, the organization and the strategies of political parties in multi-level systems, deliberative democracy and consociational democracy. Nations, nationalism and ethnic conflict The research on Conflict Resolution in Divided States and Nations covers the analysis of secessionist conflicts at the periphery of the European Union and their resolution. It also includes doctoral projects on European policies towards China, Taiwan and the cross-Strait relations. The politics of the European Union The Department is active in research on the European Union's institutional evolution, its decision-making capacity, and the role of European interest groups and lobbying. Special attention also goes to the EU's relationship with the other major world players (United States, China, ...). In its EU research activities, the Department works in close cooperation with the VUB's Institute for European Studies, which has been awarded the prestigious title of Jean Monnet Centre of Excellence by the European Commission. Chinese politics and society Several projects cover a variety of topics related to the both the domestic transition of Chinese society, economy and politics, and to the external relations of China. For the latter we focus in particular on China's foreign and security politicy and on its relations with the European Union. The research on Chines politics and soceity is conducted at BICCS, the Brussels Institute for Contemporary China Studies." "Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities" "Florian Trauner" "Vrije Universiteit Brussel (VUB) conducts a wide variety of research on migration and diversity, spread over many disciplines, departments and research institutes. The application for an institutional membership of the VUB to IMISCOE- the leading European network of migration scholars - has provided a catalyst for a long-discussed creation of an interdisciplinary ‘VUB onderzoeksgroep’ in which researchers can meet, exchange and bundle forces. This interdisciplinary group, called the ‘Brussels Interdisciplinary Research centre on Migration and Minorities (BIRMM)’ has therefore been created in January 2018. It joins over 60 VUB researchers from 7 disciplines (political science, law, sociology, criminology, social geography/urban studies, communication sciences and sociology) working on migration and diversity related topics. BIRMM is coordinated by Prof. Ilke Adam and Prof. Florian Trauner (both IES-VUB) and a board of delegates with one representative per research centre or department.Main VUB research centres and departments involved in BIRMM are: the Institute for European Studies, and particularly its research cluster Migration, Diversity and Justice (IES); the Sociology Department, with its research centres TOR and Interface Demography; the Political Science Department (POLI); BRIO, the centre for the Interdisciplinary Study of Brussels, the Cosmopolis Centre for Urban Research, the RHEA Centre for Expertise on Gender, Diversity and Intersectionality, the Criminology department with its research centre Crime & Society, the Law department, with its research centre FRC (Fundamental Rights and Constitutionalism) and the Department for Communication Sciences, with its research centre CEMESO (Culture, Emancipation, Media and Society)." "Centre for Sociological Research" "Karin Hannes" "The main research topics at the Centre for Sociological Research are: work, organization, family, historic demography, population, health care, social policy, sociological theory, cultural studies, art, education, survey methodology and political opinion research.For more information about the research topics of the different research teams belonging to this department see : - Theoretical Sociology, Sociology of culture and Sociology of Education - Sociology of Labour and Organisational Sociology - Centre for Sociology of Family, Population and Health Care - Reserach Centre for Data Collection and Analysis - Sociology of Social Policy - Family Sciences Information, Documentation and Service Centre - Flemish Self-help Support Centre" "Art History, Leuven" "Brigitte Dekeyzer" "The Art History Department comprises three research groups: Medieval Art (Jan Van der Stock, Barbara Baert & Lieve Watteeuw); Early Modern Art (Katlijne Van der Stighelen, Leo De Ren & Koenraad Brosens) and Art of the 20th-Century and Contemporary Art (Hilde Van Gelder).  All members of the Department develop empirical and/or theoretical approaches to Flemish and Belgian art in an international perspective The Research in Medieval Art is related to Illuminare – Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (KU Leuven) (www.illuminare.be). The research of Illuminare is founded upon reception history and the contextual meaning of Early Netherlandish Art (Jan Van der Stock); technical research, conservation and cataloguing of illuminated manuscripts (Lieve Watteeuw) and the iconology of the Middle Ages from an interdisciplinary perspective (Iconology Research Group - www.iconologyresearchgroup.org) (Barbara Baert). The RICH project (2012-2015) (Reflectance Imaging for Cultural Heritage) aims to create a unique digital imaging tool for researching, studying, and exploring material characteristics of art and library materials created in the Low Countries in medieval and early modern times. Iconological research projects are: The Haemorrhaging Woman (Mark 5:24-34par). An iconological research into the meaning of the bleeding woman in medieval art (4th-15th century) (2008-2012) and Caput Iohannis in Disco or St John’s Head on a Platter: object, context, medium. Illuminare is the publisher of three of its own series, the Corpus of Illuminated Manuscripts, Art and Religion (IRG) and Iconologies (IRG). Illuminare — Centre for the Study of Medieval Art (KU Leuven) organises various exhibitions both in Belgium and abroad. Amongst the most recent are Hieronymus Cock – The Renaissance in Print (2013, M – Museum of Leuven and Fondation Custodia, Paris) and The Magnificent Middle Ages (2013, Museum Plantin-Moretus, Antwerp). The study of Early Modern art benefits significantly from the existence of the Scientific Research Community (WOG/FWO) Identity, Function & Expansion of the Flemish Baroque in a European Context (Katlijne Van der Stighelen/ Leo De Ren/ Koenraad Brosens).  This community made Leuven a central player within the network of ten European and American university centres of expertise.   It ensures the vitality of yearly organized international symposia and that of the series Pictura Nova. Studies in 16th- and 17th-Century Flemish Painting and Drawing (editors: Katlijne Van der Stighelen & Hans Vlieghe) and Studies in Western Tapestry (editors: Guy Delmarcel & Koenraad Brosens) (www.arts.kuleuven.be/flemishbaroque‎). Within this scientific framework, iconographical, cultural-historical and anthropological research on different aspects of early modern, and, in particular, seventeenth-century, Flemish history painting, genre painting, sculpture design and portraiture, is performed. The network further provides a habitat for ongoing research projects such as Mapping the Antwerp-Brussels-Oudenaarde tapestry complex (1620-1720) via historical network analysis. In the context of the WOG, work has continued on the Art & Law Research Unit. This Leuven research group is concentrating on interdisciplinary research relating to jurisdiction and laboratory research on works of art. The Art of the 20th-Century and Contemporary Art (Hilde Van Gelder) is related to the Lieven Gevaert Research Centre for Photography, Art and Visual Culture (LGC) (www.lievengevaertcentre.be). The Centre, which is based both in Leuven and in Louvain-la-Neuve (and codirected there by Alexander Streitberger), is currently pursuing a long-term study of Allan Sekula’s Ship of Fools / The Dockers’ Museum (2010-2013) in collaboration with M HKA in Antwerp (2014-2019). Hilde Van Gelder is editor of the Lieven Gevaert Book Series (Leuven University Press), and editor of the open access e-journal Image [&] Narrative (www.imageandnarrative.be), which is part of Open Humanities Press. Her research focuses on how photographic and moving images within contemporary visual art can function both as a driving force for societal change and for re-legitimating or re-imagining fundamental rights. She is a regular guest curator of research-based exhibitions, most recently (2017) of Allan Sekula: Collective Sisyphus at the Fundació Antoni Tàpies in Barcelona (co-curated with Carles Guerra and Anja Isabel Schneider)." "Personal Rights and Property Rights" "Britt Weyts" "Through a social embeddedness as a two-way relationship, the research programme's mission is to conduct research to private legal relationships from a comparative, interdisciplinary and intradisciplinary point of view. Private legal relationships operate in a quickly changing social environment. These evolutions influence the way the State should regulate them. Therefore, the research programme aims at conducting research to private legal relationships. The currently relevant research themes are divided into research lines: private relations where an unbalance (in expertise, capital ...) exists between the parties, family relations, and private legal relationships in art & culture." "Department of Literary Studies" "Mara Santi" "The Literature Department clusters literary research across different disciplines: Greek, Latin, French, Dutch, German, English, Italian, Spanish and a number of Scandinavian languages. Its researchers also study comparative literature focussing on a number of topics such as book and genre studies, cultural memory, identity and interculturality, digital humanities, narratology and rhetorics." "Work Research Kernel" "Guido Van Limberghen" "Various departments from various faculties have studied labour in its most diverse facets in the past. This research out is the basis for or reinforced many courses in which labor in one of its aspects forms the central theme. The Labor Research Research Group (WORK) aims to address all researchers who study the work from many perspectives. It aims to bring them together in the short term and provide them with a forum for the mutual exchange of information on research activities and results, for the inventory of existing common research topics and for the bundling of expertise that can also be shown to the outside world . These activities form the basis for setting up joint multidisciplinary research projects. The research activities of the group include many courses, graduation programs, options, profiles or courses in future courses to bachelor and master of many faculties."