Growing Up Together in Society (GUTS) is a collaboration of researchers from seven universities and a wide variety of disciplines that share one mission: to understand how young people grow up in a complex society.

Research program

The key-question that our program aims to answer is: how do young people with varying opportunities grow up in an increasingly complex society? And what are the main causes for differences in contributing to society?

We investigate how young people’s brain and (social) behavior develop over a period of ten years. We connect these patterns of neurobiological and behavioral development to the circumstances someone grows up in: what access to educational opportunities, social networks and societal norms does someone have? And what makes some adolescents deviate from expected societal norms and engage in antisocial behavior? In other words, how do nature and nurture interact during growing up to adulthood? And what impact does your starting point in life have on where you will end up in society?

Members

The GUTS program brings together an interdisciplinary team of researchers. We investigate youth from the perspective of societal neuroscience, and combine insights from neuroscience, psychology, psychiatry, and sociology.

The GUTS steering committee consists of:

• Eveline Crone, program leader; Erasmus University Rotterdam
• Lydia Krabbendam, VU-Amsterdam
• Anna van Duijvenvoorde, Leiden University
• René Veenstra, Groningen University
• Lucres Nauta-Jansen, AmsterdamUMC
• Hilleke Hulshoff Pol, Utrecht University

The steering committee takes care of the daily governance of the GUTS program by supporting the work packages, fostering collaboration, creating education and training opportunities and setting out the broader future vision.

The GUTS consortium is supported by a Supervisory Board, Deans of University Board, Graduate and Postgraduate Committee, Scientific Advisory Board, Societal and Ethics Advisory Board and a Youth Advisory Board. The Deans of Universities Board consists of the deans of the universities or director of the KNAW institute that are represented in the consortium.

Funding

Our program is funded by a Gravitation grant from the ministry of Education, Culture and Science for a ten-year period (2022-2032). Are you interested in reading the full GUTS program? Download the GUTS proposal. Visit our research page to read more about our different research projects. If you have questions or suggestions, feel free to reach out to us via the contact page.