NCCR LIVES (2011–2022)

Home institutions: University of Lausanne; University of Geneva

Research of the NCCR

The NCCR “LIVES – Overcoming Vulnerability: Life Course Perspectives” dealt with vulnerability, a concept describing a variety of external factors or stressors that may negatively impact the life course of a human and the ability, or lack thereof, to use resources to cope with these life events. The study of vulnerability allowed the NCCR to understand why the life courses of humans take a negative turn and what measures may help prevent the socio-economic factors leading up to it. The NCCR conducted comparative, longitudinal analyses to examine the role of social structures and personal resources in overcoming vulnerability and provided a new, multidisciplinary, theoretical framework for vulnerability.

Scientific impact

The development of the theoretical framework for vulnerability required uniting and motivating a multidisciplinary team of researchers. Its successful implementation has allowed the consortium to shift its focus from the initial and rather static view on vulnerability as a syndrome - a lasting state of dependence or lack of autonomy of notoriously affected social groups such as poor people, patients with chronic diseases, refugees, etc. - to a more process-oriented understanding of their core concept. To become vulnerable is then defined as a process of resource losses in one or several life domains, threatening individuals because of their acute or chronic inability to avoid stressors or to cope with these. The implementation of the framework in empirical research was at the core of the NCCR programme.

Legacy

The NCCR LIVES has become an internationally recognised methodological hub for life course analysis. Switzerland is very likely to remain at the forefront of this research area, in particular due to the NCCR’s main legacy, the inter-institutional “Swiss Centre of Expertise in Life Course Research” (Centre LIVES), hosted by the universities in Lausanne and Geneva. Moreover, the NCCR teamed up with the University of Applied Sciences and Arts Western Switzerland (HES-SO) to set up the “LIVES Social Innovation Lab” (LSI). On the one hand, its projects aimed to create a job-seeking platform for vulnerable people; on the other hand, to develop ways of generating project ideas that bridge research and practice.