Jacobs center on lifelong learning and institutional development
| File:JacobsSeal.png File:Jacobs Startlogo standard.png Logo of Jacobs University Bremen | |
| Established | 2003 |
|---|---|
| Dean | Ursula M. Staudinger |
| Location | , |
| Website | www.jacobs-university.de |
History and Mission
The Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development was founded by Prof. Ursula M. Staudinger in October 2003, with financial support from the Jacobs Foundation. The Center is an important addition to the Swiss Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development. The Jacobs Center is part of the English-speaking international Jacobs University that was founded in 1999 in Bremen.
The Jacobs Center on Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development (JCLL) explores the conditions of productive development in adulthood, and attempts to identify ways to tap into the potential productivity that exists in different work contexts. Central to the Center’s research and teaching foci is the rapid obsolescence of knowledge, globalization, and demographic change. It is the explicit objective of the Jacobs Center to use research to significantly enhance individual, corporate and societal understanding of the potential benefits of demographic change. The Center places particular emphasis of the importance of this research for businesses, which currently face many of the above-mentioned challenges, and on optimizing both personnel policies and the meaningful inclusion of older employees in changing work contexts.
Research
The Jacobs Center pursues a number of activities in research, academic and professional training, lecture series and consulting. The aim of research at JCLL is to understand how individual and institutional conditions interact to influence adult development, in particular in the work context. With the goal to understand this from a systemic perspective, the Jacobs Center was conceptualized as an interdisciplinary center. It encompasses facilities that specialize on the research of the individual, as well as those that primarily concentrate on context. These include: Neuroscience and Human Performance, Lifespan Psychology, Health Psychology, Organizational Behavior, Business Administration, Behavioral Economics, Sociology, and Political Science.
Projects
Many of the Center’s projects aim at combining various disciplines. A typical example is the Center’s demopass project (funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF)), to which all JCLL Faculty contribute. The project investigates the effects of demographic change within companies, and in particular within five business areas that are particularly relevant for dealing with demographic change: training/qualification, health management, intergenerational transfer of knowledge and experience, and age climate and person-task match. The project investigates the extent to which matches and mismatches between the corporate strategy or the supervisor, the organizational climate and the attitudes or competence of employees show effects in terms of their impact on health and productivity. Last year, the ambitious multi-level design was successfully implemented in five companies. By the end of 2008, the first wave of data collection for this project was completed. The functionality and dysfunctionality with regard to health and productivity outcomes was then assessed and the data collection protocol streamlined based on the results. Assessment rounds are currently being reimplemented in companies. The final goal of the project is to develop a diagnostic tool with which companies can independently assess their matches and mismatches in the areas mentioned above and subsequently intervene to dissolve dysfunctional constellations.
Teaching
The JCLL offers the structured interdisciplinary PhD program „Productive Adult Development“. An important part of doctoral studies includes the regular Transdisciplinary Colloquia as well as the Distinguished Lecture Series, to which renowned visiting scholars are invited. This both strengthens the Center’s reputation but also allows for valuable academic networking.
Consulting
In the area of executive education, the Jacobs Center offers executive master programs in the field of age management and "Strategic Personnel Development for Value-Creating Leadership". Moreover, the JCLL offers executive seminars well as the opportunity to network with other organizations on the management of demographic change. In addition, the professors of the JCLL are very active in giving lectures and presentations on the subject of demographic change, and in doing so contribute to the transfer of important knowledge.