Relational Society Project

Relational Society Project Dashboard (for team members)

Jody Hoffer Gittell, PI
Shyamal Sharma, Co-PI
Relational Coordination Research Collaborative
The Heller School, Brandeis University

About the Project

The Relational Society Project is an innovation incubator for seeking practical and sustainable solutions with human capacity to address the serious crises of our times that permeate geopolitical boundaries and ultimately affect us all around the globe. We conceptualize Relational Society as a state of generalized reciprocity and robust social capital, created through goodwill, empathetic fellowship, and virtuous social interactions among individuals and stakeholders in a community as parts of a whole.

We humans evolved as an empathic species. Early in our evolution, as hunter-gatherers, we learned to value empathy and interdependence as crucial to our survival as a species, providing an impetus for creating a social order embedded in solidarity and recognition of our shared destiny.

We now live in a highly interconnected world – evolutionarily, socially, economically, and environmentally. Paradoxically, however, large swaths of humanity around the globe are afflicted by loneliness and social isolation of epidemic proportions, in addition to suffering from deep divisions around race, economic class, religion, and political beliefs. Our shared destiny as a civil society is at grave risk.

We are however hardwired with an innate capacity for relating with our fellow human beings, for expressing empathy, for building solidarity, for being resilient in crisis. Our hope, therefore, lies within us.

We need to build a relational society, starting in the communities where we live. We need to repair our damaged relationships and re-build our communities in a far more inclusive way. At the micro level, we need to foster human empathy, at the meso level we need to engage coordinated collective action, and at the macro level we need to build supportive institutions. The RCRC has launched the Relational Society Project, with participating sites in the US, the UK, Denmark, Norway, Nigeria, China and Pakistan to understand how communities solve complex population health challenges through relationships at all three levels.

The Relational Society Framework

Timeline

Develop Framework & Recruit Sites	Comparative Case Study	Experimental Study	Reports & Dissemination
June 2019 - January 2020	May 2020 - April 2021	May 2021 - April 2023	January 2023 - August 2023

Study Locations

Relational Society Project site map

Community	Research Team	Local Team Lead
China - Shanghai	TBD	Hao Gong, Rutgers University, US
Nigeria - Abuja	TBD	Olawale Olaleye, Brandeis University, US
Norway - Oslo	TBD	Claus Jebsen, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Pakistan - Peshawar	TBD	Muhammad Siddique, Institute of Management Sciences, Pakistan Saleem Gul, Institute of Management Sciences, Pakistan
United Kingdom - Maryport, West Cumbria, England	TBD	Julie Clayton, North Cumbria, National Health Service, UK Suzanne Hamilton, North Cumbria, National Health Service, UK
US - Portland, Oregon	Jody Hoffer Gittell, Brandeis University, US Shyamal Sharma, Brandeis University, US	Sally Retecki, CareOregon, US Erin Fair Taylor, CareOregon, US
US - Cincinnati, Ohio	Jody Hoffer Gittell, Brandeis University, US Shyamal Sharma, Brandeis University, US	Rob Kahn, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, US Carly Riley, Cincinnati Children's Hospital, US
US - Seacoast Region, New Hampshire	Jody Hoffer Gittell, Brandeis University, US Shyamal Sharma, Brandeis University, US	Bill Gunn, Connections for Health, US