ReMO will focus on well-being and mental health within academia, a topic of strategic importance for the European Research Area. Previous research shows that low levels of well-being and mental health problems have a negative impact on individual, team and organizational performance, generating significant costs. In addition, the institutional context, organizational structure and culture, as well as management practices, have a significant impact on the well-being and health of employees. Therefore, general knowledge about the causes of workplace wellness and mental health must be refined with contextual details (i.e., in academia) to develop effective and efficient personalized prevention and action programs.

ReMO wants to address these limitations using a three-pronged approach: (1) Our goal is to develop a conceptual framework and tools that are adapted to the academic context taking into account the specific aspects and challenges of academia and academic work (e.g., performance management of academics, increasingly competitive landscape to recruit and retain talented employees, growing challenges of dealing with diversity and internationalization, job insecurity, etc.); (2) We adopt a multi-level perspective on problems and problem-generating mechanisms, but also on positive organizational behavior in support of meaningful work and well-being; (3) We use a diversity of methods with short cycles of feedback between theory and practice.

The proponents of ReMO are academics, professionals, policy makers and consultants from higher education institutions. They represent an international mix of scientific and practical knowledge on researcher’s mental health and a much needed interdisciplinary (e.g., psychology, sociology, business administration), multilevel (individual, organizational, systems), and intercultural perspective.