UJA Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions - Individual Fellowships Hosting Offer 2019 (SOCIAL SCIENCES AND HUMANITIES)

Description of Hosting Institution (UJA – Spain)

Jaén University (UJA) was created in 1993 and is in the Top 50 of the world’s best young universities according to THE (Times Higher Education). This ranking analyzes aspects such as teaching, research work, the university’s international outreach, or integration into industry. Besides, the UJA has received the distinction of Campus of International Excellence in the fields of Agrifood (CEIA3) and Climate Change (CamBio), plus it also leads the Andalusian CEI project on historical heritage PatrimoniUN10.

Jaén University has five faculties (Social and Legal Sciences; Humanities and Education Sciences; Health Sciences; Experimental Sciences and Social Work) and two higher polytechnic schools for engineering (Linares and Jaén). In turn, these centers are organized into 35 departments. It also has three Postgraduate educational centers (Doctorate School, Advanced Study Center in Modern Languages and Postgraduate Study Center).

In regards to its research, there are five specialized centers at Jaén University. Besides, the full picture of the over 100 UJA groups covers the following research fields of expertise (https://www.ujaen.es/servicios/ofipi/uja-ri-expertise): Agrifood (AGR); Biology (BIO); Health (CTS); Social Sciences, Business, Law (SEJ); Physics, Chemistry, Mathematics (FQM); Humanities (HUM); Natural Resources and Environmental Sciences (RNM); Information and Communications Technology (TIC); and Engineering Production Technology (TEP).

As far the UJA hosting offer is concerned, Prof. AMADOR JESÚS LARA SÁNCHEZ (alara@ujaen.es) would be willing to host post-doctoral researchers that are eventually funded through the H2020 MSCA-IF 2019 call for applications to be part of the following research team:

UJA hosting research group (https://bit.ly/2CBilNS)

The Research Group HUM 653 initiates its activity in 1999, with the name Educación Física y Deportes, made up just by professors of Physical Education and Sports. Some years later the group acquires a new name, Aspectos Multiculturales e Interdisciplinares de la Educación. Actividad física, música y bellas artes (AMIE), integrating other areas of knowledge.

The group is located in the Faculty of Humanities and Sciences of Education, and has access to students of the Bachelor’s degree of Primary and Early Education (Physical Education and Music specialisation), and from the Master in Secondary School Education.

Currently, innovation and interdisciplinarity are a priority in the academic training of the future teachers. It is for that reason the Group takes an essentially an educational direction, changing its name to Innovación didáctica en actividad física (IDAF), integrating the research fields and approaches detailed in the next section. Everything is orientated to the design of educational strategies and resources.

The researchers of this Group belong to the departments of Didactics of Body Language and Music from the universities of Jaén, Córdoba, Granada and Málaga, including also researcher from other educational levels.

The Group supports educational innovative activities as the Jornadas de Innovación docente e investigación educativa, taking part every year framed in the Master in Secondary School Education, and the publications of the papers generated by the different researches as well.

Project description

According to the recommendation documents, the European Commission calls for further research in promoting HLS, exploring the benefits of physical activity for youth employment and improving the effectiveness of implementing of the professional duties.

We consider the issue through the following projection of economic growth: physical activity – formation and/or development of important professional qualities – addition and expansion of competences – empowerment to perform professional functions – advantages for the employer – employment.

The main aim of the project is to increase motivation for physical activity, through identifying the diversity of professional qualities as components of competencies of students, that are formed as a result of sports activities.

The main aim includes goals such as:

• Increasing motivation for physical activity.
• Increasing the knowledge of employers, future employees, their parents and teachers about the impact of physical activity on the success of performing professional tasks that are not related to sports.

Achievement of these goals will be mediated by the following specific objectives:

• Development and implementation of the methodology for identifying moral, psychological and physical important professional qualities as components of competencies, which are formed and / or developed through engagement in physical activity.
• Establishing a link between the identified qualities and the requirements of the European market.

The direct influence of the implementation of the project will include at least three Spanish, two Portuguese and three Ukrainian Universities, which serve as the base for the experiment, scientific potential, infrastructure, and communications.

Interviews, survey, pedagogical observation and expert evaluation will be carried out.

The project proposes feasible tasks for the researcher with adequate time frames under the supervision of two experienced supervisors.

Application procedure

CV, Motivation letter and Summary of project proposal (250 words) by 14^th June 2019 to ofipi@ujaen.es. Further information regarding the application requirements can be found at https://ec.europa.eu/research/mariecurieactions/actions/individual-fellowships_en & https://ec.europa.eu/info/funding-tenders/opportunities/portal/screen/opportunities/topic-details/msca-if-2019.