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 a research and innovation incubator for seeking practical and sustainable relational solutions 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	Identify Promising Interventions	Experimental Study	Reports & Dissemination
May 2019 - Aug 2020	Sep 2020 - Aug 2021	Sep 2021	Oct 2021 - Jan 2023	Jan 2023 - Aug 2023

Study Locations

Community	Site and Research Team Leads
China - Shanghai	Hao Gong, Rutgers University, US
Nigeria - Abuja	Olawale Olaleye, Brandeis University, US
Norway - Oslo	Claus Jebsen, BI Norwegian Business School, Norway
Pakistan - Peshawar	Muhammad Siddique, Institute of Management Sciences, Pakistan Saleem Gul, Institute of Management Sciences, Pakistan
United Kingdom - Maryport, West Cumbria, England	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