“Building 4 Belonging“ awarded €1M NWA Loneliness grant

1 January 2024

The “Building 4 Belonging“ project has recently been awarded 1 million euros from the Dutch Research Agenda (NWA) of the Dutch Research Council (NWO)!

This project aims to combat feelings of loneliness in high schools by focusing on students’ mental wellbeing and social belonging. Specifically, it emphasizes the role of architecture / physical environment, as students must first be able to “stay there” to make the social connections necessary for building a sense of belonging, without being over-stimulated by noises, crowds, and chaos that often characterize the school break time.

I am honored to be one of the co-applicants in this super strong and interdisciplinary team led by Prof. Carolien Rieffe (Leiden University, University of Twente). Combining computer science with architecture, developmental psychology, child psychiatry, and sociology, we aim to make students’ social belonging and the associated environmental factors measurable in real-time via smartwatches, and improve it, especially for autistic students and students with other support needs.

Read more about this grant here.

Dennis Reidsma (UTwente), Carolien Rieffe (Leiden University & UTwente), Robert Vermeiren (LUMC), Yung-Ting Tsou (Leiden University & VU), Ivet Pieper (Stichting Alexander), Maria Hibsma (NVA), Ellen Starke (Schoolboard Alliances Amsterdam), Alexander Koutamanis (TU Delft)