Institute of Education London

PATHWAYS Programme

An International Postdoctoral Fellowship Programme for the Comparative Study of Productive Youth Development

The mission of this Collaborative Post-Doctoral Fellowship Programme is to stimulate innovative, interdisciplinary, and comparative research of productive youth development. Participating institutions include the Institute of Education in London, the Universities of Michigan, Stockholm, Helsinki, Jena, and the Max Planck Institute for Human Development in Berlin. The major objective of the programme is to promote the next generation of researchers and facilitate a better understanding and discourse with different stake holders about how to equip young people for mastering the challenges of growing up in a changing social context.
PATHWAYS will investigate the antecedents, processes, and long-term outcomes of youth transitions, as well as the factors and processes promoting human competences, especially among young people deemed to be at-risk. Training and mentoring will be provided to enhance understanding of diverse approaches to the study of productive youth development and to engage in constructive debates with colleagues from different disciplines. It will help to foster international and interdisciplinary research and exchange of ideas, in order to gain up-to-date skills for addressing research and policy questions that require combined approaches and a synergy of ideas.
A 'Virtual Institute Approach' has been adopted, not limiting activities to one physical location, but pooling the expertise of several partner institutions that are connected by shared research interests, projects and existing collaborations. The administrative core is based at the Institute of Education but many of PATHWAYS' activities occur at the participating sites. There will be regular joint workshops and conferences, bringing together scholars from around the globe, facilitating international networking and exchange.

Fellowship Awards - Application

Applicants for the fellowship awards must have a PhD in a social science such as psychology, sociology, economics, education, geography or social statistics – and an interest in life course research. You must be prepared to spend at least six weeks at one of our international partner Institutions for exchange of ideas and developing collaborative research proposals. Applicants for the UK placement are expected to use the British Birth Cohorts to examine specific aspects of youth transitions, and must have a high level of proficiency of applying advanced statistical methods to empirical research and experience in longitudinal data analysis.