José Victor Oron, a pre-doctoral researcher within the Institute for Culture and Society's Mind-Brain Group, has completed a four-month research stay at the University of Reading thanks to a grant from the Caja Navarra Foundation.

During his stay, he worked with Kleio Akrivou, a professor in the Department of Ethics at the Henley Business School, University of Reading. As a result of this collaboration, they have published an article and a book chapter together and have launched several ongoing projects.

What kind of research did you complete during your time at the University of Reading? 

My research stay was the result of lectures on human development that Kleio Akrivou gave two years ago at the University of Navarra. Akrivou talked about how different psychologists understand human development and the issue of the integrity of the person at the end of life.

At first glance, the subject did not have much to do with my thesis on the emotional education of adolescents. However, we started working together on an article because, despite having different interests, we shared something in common; we were both interested in how human development is understood from the point of view of psychology.

After several months of working long distance, I proposed a research stay at the University of Reading to better understand the subject and to meet one of the requirements for obtaining an international doctorate. She accepted and, between the two of us, we outlined my stay's two goals. On the one hand, we wanted to complete our work on integration in the later stages of life. On this point, we realized we were not just dealing with a problem for the later stages of life and the elderly, but rather human development is ultimately understood in different ways. Our second goal was thus to define the various conceptual forms for understanding human development.

What kinds of things did you do during your stay?

I worked on interdisciplinary research between philosophy and psychology. We used Leonardo Polo's philosophical contribution to conceptualize current trends in psychology. Today, one can find many differences between one psychologist and another, but they almost always share a conception of the human being and human development.

We discovered two major trends. We call the first one Autonomous Self (AS), which claims that the key to human development is autonomy, mastery, competence and self-determination, among other things. The second trend, called Interprocesal Self (IPS), suggests that human development occurs in a personalist key; the whole person is seen as a system in which everything is related and development of the whole system allows a person to grow.

For this project, Akrivou contributes with the psychological piece and I focus more on the philosophical part. We have presented our work together at an interdisciplinary seminar at the Henley Business School, as well as at two seminars within the Neuroscience Department at the University College of London and at the University of Reading's School of Education.

During each seminar, we presented the project's structure and its application or impact in economics, neuroscience and education.

Now that you are back in Spain, how do you assess your research stay?

I think my research stay was very positive. I was lucky in that Professor Akrivou only teaches from January to June so, while I was there, she was very available. We were able to meet twice a week for five or six hours and, the rest of the week, we each worked individually.

Our work resulted in an article and a book chapter, both of which have already been accepted for publication. When writing the book chapter, we realized that we could delve deeper into the topic and thus began a third project. We are now working on a book focused on psychology and philosophy that explains the two forms of conceptualizing human development, eventually arguing for one of them. In addition, we are working on a fourth project to try to apply this topic to emotional education, which is the main subject of my thesis.

The fact that so many projects have opened up is proof of how positive and productive my research stay was. I will most likely return to Reading in July. Options are fully open and we continue working on them.

What differences did you find between the research communities in Spain and the United Kingdom?

The styles are similar, at least when it comes to the two mentalities and ways of working. However, I think the ICS, as a structure, greatly facilitates relationships between researchers. In the United Kingdom, possible collaborations arise from specific seminars.

ICS is thus like a "permanent seminar" that promotes more dialogue. For example, I now have several projects open that will result in published articles with researchers from the Mind-Brain Group and from other groups. This is possible thanks to the ICS. The U.K. doesn't have a structure that promotes this, but rather depends on personal initiative.

What are your next projects?

My plans for the immediate future include a book on the conceptualizations of human development and an article on emotional education.

 In addition, Professor Akrivou was offered the opportunity to participate in an unconference, i.e., a non-conference organized by several publishers, which splits from a traditional system with a speaker by organizing around working groups that deal with different topics. She asked me to present— well not really present since there are no official presentations, but rather facilitate discussion— on the topic of emotional education.

This unconference will be held in Paris next July. It is important because the organizers are publishers and if all goes well and enough intellectual and academic movement is generated, they offer you the possibility to edit a special issue on the subject.

We have also received an invitation to present our work in October at a conference in Oxford, which we plan to do.

How does your research stay form part of the Mind-Brain Group's activities?

My research stay has enriched the group because it reinforces different psychological fields and introduces a philosopher like Polo in the English-speaking world. The Mind-Brain Group also benefits from the relationship established between the University of Navarra and the University of Reading. If all goes well, this project presents a very fruitful psychological line that will allow for far-reaching future development between the Group and the University of Reading.

We have made a proposal related to psychology on how to conceptualize human development from Polo's philosophy and now need to seek validation. This opens up a larger project that will allow future doctoral students from both universities to pursue the topic.