Identification, measurement and development of the cognitive and emotional competences important for a Europe-oriented society

Integration into the international knowledge-based economy imposes development of the individual cognitive and emotional competences that will strengthen their adaptation potentials (knowledge, professional skills, stress management in the workplace and out of it, and global social skills) in a rapidly changing society. Aside from the general population, special attention will be paid to children, youth, and persons with adaptation problems. A broad range of interconnected topics will be covered, from those of immediate social relevance (e.g., validation and improvement of educational processes and institutions; development of institutional support to the education of the gifted and successful; increase of the efficiency of state agencies through improvement of selection procedures; analysis of the factors influencing value systems of the young, their relationship towards others and their violent behavior), to those focusing on fundamental problems (e.g., reconstruction of the basic personality space and the mapping of a broad range of behavioral forms, symptoms, internal mechanisms and biological correlates onto that space; definition of the universals characterizing the militant extremist mindset; study of the basic nature of the learning/teaching process). To realize the project, we will gather data in various samples of respondents, while using new methods and techniques of data collection and analysis, and developing new instruments standardized in our population.