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Welcome to the Leibniz Best Minds Project RuWell

 

Rural well-being in transition: multidimensional drivers and effects on (im)mobility

RuWell is a Leibniz Best Minds project funded by the Leibniz Association. The RuWell team of this Leibniz Junior Research Group is led by Antje Jantsch and is investigating quality of life in rural Southeast Europe and East Germany by developing a Multidimensional Well-being Index (MWI) for these areas. We aim at decoding the link between quality of life and (im)mobility decisions of rural residents with a special focus on the dimension of place attachment that has received little attention in this context. Our target countries include Albania, Kosovo, Moldova, Romania, and East Germany. The project is largely inspired by and builds on Antje Jantsch’s outstanding academic achievements, more especially in the thematic areas of quality of life, happiness research, and subjective well-being.

We seek to generate policy-salient research findings that will shape public discourse on matters pertaining to quality of life in rural Europe. Sharing our findings is at the heart of our research activities, and we follow the guidelines of Good Scientific Practice stipulated by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the Leibniz Association. RuWell collaborates with scientists from various disciplines and institutions, see the “partners” section for more details about this.

News

12 March 2024

RuWell team participates in the 2024 BeWell meeting

Our colleagues, Arbnora Shala, Johnson Kansiime and our project leader Dr. Antje Jantsch yet again had the pleasure to participate in this year’s Berlin Network of Research on Wellbeing (BeWell) meeting that took place in Magdeburg. Engaging...

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01 November 2023

The role of ‘place attachment’ in people’s immobility decisions and well-being – insights from fieldwork in Moldova and Romania

In October 2023, Daniela and Antje completed a one-month research stay in Moldova and Romania as part of the RuWell project. To prepare for the upcoming quantitative surveys in Moldova and Romania, they conducted semi-structured interviews with...

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13 October 2023

Daniela and Antje share ethnographic insights on place attachment and rural livelihoods in the Republic of Moldova at an International Scientific-Practical Conference in Chisinau

The Republic of Moldova has been drastically affected by depopulation, especially in rural areas. Nevertheless, in regions with a winegrowing tradition and emerging rural tourism, a large part of the active labor force is motivated to stay and not...

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