The Zurich Project on the Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood: Phase VII
Description: This application proposes a new phase of the Zurich Project on Social Development from Childhood to Adulthood (z-proso) research infrastructure. z-proso provides users from across the social sciences access to and support with a unique prospective longitudinal cohort study of 1,675 children who entered a public primary school in Zurich, Switzerland, in 2004, and are now nearing the completion of their first three decades of life. The diverse population-based z-proso cohort was assessed in nine waves at ages 7, 8, 9, 11, 13, 15, 17, 20, and 24. Multi-informant data, including repeated parent and teacher assessments during the participants' childhood and adolescence, is also available. Furthermore, z-proso benefits from detailed official records of educational trajectories to the end of obligatory schooling and comprehensive juvenile and adult justice records from ages 10 to 25 years. Moreover, several linked ‘add-on’ data collections add opportunities for addressing innovative research questions on human development. These add-on studies resulted in extensive data based on neuroimaging, blood samples, hair samples, ecological momentary assessments, decision games, and tasks measuring cognition. The newly initiated add-on study z-proso Next Generation (NextGen) focuses on participants and their partners who became parents and their children. Sample attrition is comparable with that of other major long-term cohort studies worldwide. Of the Wave 1 (age 7 years) participants, 75% still participated in Wave 9 (age 24 years).z-proso participants are now among the best-characterized youth scientifically in Switzerland and beyond. These extensive data have elevated z-proso to a unique research infrastructure for addressing nationally and internationally important research questions on the transition from childhood to early adulthood in the early 21st century. The proposed assessment of participants at age 28 will extend the study through early adulthood and significantly increase its scientific value and international impact.The z-proso infrastructure has achieved growing national and international importance, with reach across the social sciences. It has focal strengths for investigating aggression, bullying, offending, socioemotional skills (including interventions to improve these), symptoms of internalizing and externalizing behaviors, substance use, life events, moral judgment, and educational and occupational development. As a dynamic infrastructure with many international partners and users, z-proso has pursued additional lines of research, including attention-deficit/hyperactivity disorder and, most recently, stress and compliance with public health measures during the COVID-19 pandemic.The infrastructure fosters scientific collaboration and interdisciplinarity. In its latest phase (2021–2024), collaborations resulted in approximately 70 publications in leading journals in criminology, economics, neuroscience, pharmacology, psychiatry, psychology, public health, social sciences, and health. It also increased its international reach by partnering with researchers from more than 20 universities worldwide. More than 115 users have conducted z-proso-based research, and this number is expected to significantly increase upon data publication on an open repository this spring. z-proso actively encourages academic work by early-career researchers, and an increasing number of PhD dissertations worldwide are based on z-proso data.A key instrument for promoting international and interdisciplinary collaboration is the open z-proso International Research Network (zIReN). The network holds annual interdisciplinary research meetings at prestigious European universities. At the meetings, ongoing z-proso research is provided, and the infrastructure has the opportunity to introduce users to new data sets, identify user needs and new research interests, and to provide technical support. In Switzerland, z-proso contributes important value to internationally visible research centers, including the Jacobs Center for Productive Youth Development of the University of Zurich (UZH) and the UZH Population Research Center, a member of the Population Europe network.From 2021–2024, the z-proso team has made great progress toward making its data more widely accessible to the research community by creating a detailed, user-friendly documentation of key parts of the z-proso data and toward documenting and describing its nearly 13,000 variables in the main dataset.Owing to this work, beginning in spring 2024, many z-proso datasets are made available on SWISSUbase, “a national, cross-disciplinary research data service” where data can be deposited “to share it with other researchers while ensuring their long-term preservation and respecting FAIR principles” and a data repository recommended by the Swiss National Science Foundation.In 2025–2028, z-proso’s infrastructure will pursue four main objectives: First, it will collect its 10th main wave of data when participants are aged 28 years, or nearing the end of young adulthood and settling into more stable adult relationships and roles.Second, the z-proso infrastructure will promote continuing and new research, allowing users to investigate new, timely, and important questions from adolescence to adulthood that can only be answered with long-term longitudinal data. Among others, current users and project partners were invited to propose research themes such as the following:•The life cycle of victimization and perpetration across roles, domains, and generations•Distrust and alienation: Conspiracy beliefs, violent extremism, and legal cynicism•Gender norms, sexual behavior, and romantic relationships•Transdiagnostic processes and developmental cascades of poor mental health•Dynamics of substance use and trajectories toward addiction•Young adults’ educational trajectories and work lives •Cross-national comparative workContinuing and extending prior collaborations, the infrastructure will also enable several innovative add-on studies, including video-vignette-based measurements, which ask individuals' reactions in real-life criminological scenarios; measurements of cognitive functions (e.g., attention, working memory, visuospatial declarative memory, and executive functions); a third wave of collecting hair data to quantify substance use and stress and sex hormones; a second burst of ecological momentary assessments; and the continuation of the newly initiated z-proso NextGen study, which focuses on participants and their partners who became parents and their children.Third, the infrastructure will continue to strengthen its extensive efforts to share data, including data cleaning and processing, producing comprehensive user-friendly documentation, collaborating with SWISSUbase for depositing data, and organizing annual meetings for the zIReN network. Finally, the infrastructure will continue its extensive policy and outreach activities, including the dissemination of findings to relevant stakeholders nationally and internationally.z-proso has secured generous additional funding from the Jacobs Center for its current and the 2025–2028 funding periods. This includes partial funding for the project direction, full funding for zIReN network meetings, and the launching of add-on studies based on z-proso’s infrastructure. In the new funding cycle, z-proso continues to be affiliated with the Jacobs Center at the UZH, an ideal home for z-proso, as it is a world-leading interdisciplinary research center devoted to studying the crucial transitions from childhood to adolescence and adulthood. The infrastructure benefits from the leadership of three highly recognized academics and specialists in developmental research, and a strong and experienced management team. Thus, it is the ideal environment for showcasing how z-proso exemplifies high-quality social research in Switzerland.
Amount: CHF 1,000,000
Funding type: infrastructure
Funder scheme: Research Infrastructure
Start date: 2025-01-01
End date: 2028-12-31
Investigator: Ribeaud, Denis (lead)
Institutions: University of Zurich, University of Zurich – ZH
Funded outputs count: 6
Funder award ID: 229647
OpenAlex ID: G1069572954