Goal

In our scientific and everyday engagement with child development, we have been studying and conceptualising defects and atypicalities in great detail. With this project, we will radically change the perspective and the approach of studying typical and atypical child development. We will research into the beginning of life, the roots of flourishing and the pathways to optimal outcome focusing on strengths and capabilities (compensatory mechanisms), rather than deficits, barriers or obstacles. What are our early-life cornerstones and how do these evolve, how do compensatory mechanisms develop to reach our individual highest potential. Some (of us) have a comparably difficult start, are born too early or after complications during pregnancy, for example. If children experience such drawbacks early in life, we need to explore what can be done to help them to reach their highest potential. Our goal is to develop a perspective of child development defining "every step" from a child's perspective, carving out what it needs to climb as high as possible. Scientists, clinicians, entrepreneurs, etc. need to jointly engage in developing a new approach for our children to reach the maximum within the resources of various heterogeneous developmental environments and societal constructs.

Opportunity

Like J.J. Rousseau and fellow scientists who described their (own) children develop, we have seen many children grow-up, conducted and reviewed many large-scale studies on infants who develop normally, or children who don't. We have learned from these studies about infant and child development, but with this framework, we aim to understand the roots of the many developmental pathways to achieving the best possible outcome - 'salutogenesis' in different societal constructs. This foundation will open new possibilities, allow us to think outside of our box, and bring together different cultural and societal approaches to help the youngest. Tomorrow and thereafter.

Roadblocks

The greatest challenge is to define a dedicated global consortium sharing the view of this concept, thinking outside the classic box with a thorough understanding of bio- and cultural diversity. A team of experts with a common basis of understanding needs to solve issues related to comparable study designs, defining optimal outcomes, data sharing, data protection, merging of data, timely and identical data pre-processing and post-processing approaches, across discipline understanding and integration of concepts, multidimensional assessments (physiological, cognitive, communicative, sociological, behavioural, pedagogic, etc. domains), dealing with different achievement- and social- constructs and importantly speaking the "same interdisciplinary language" across cultures.

Breakthroughs Needed

We still need a better understanding of universals of child development, parental coping with difficult situations, "plasticity" of development, strategies of infants overcoming adverse factors potentially affecting thriving and flourishing, etc. There is a great body of knowledge to build upon, but one of the breakthroughs will be the change in perspectives of infants seen in a bio-psycho-social context, as an individuum but also as part of a greater system that supports and hampers development at the same time. It will be a breakthrough as we will change from a symptom-perspective to a multidimensional-multilayer view of development highlighting strengths and opportunities. We are dealing with so many different constructs of "developmental milestones" or definitions of success and achievements, but need to re-consider these constructs and deliver a convincing new paradigm giving room for alternative routes or developmental pathways. It needs dedicated scientists, clinicians and "thinkers" sharing the idea of exploring new pathways of the variability of development to reach new grounds. One may call it a constructivist or developmentalist approach, it is the learning to better understand the fundamentals of development.

Key Indicators of Success

Formation of a renowned team of researchers; manifesto for a new approach studying various aspects of development; conducting a pilot project and writing seminal papers including the critical evaluation of all related scientific, clinical and societal communities; securing additional funding for stand-alone projects under the umbrella of CHILD; designing and conducting comparable studies on the prediction of developmental outcomes in different "regions" (please see above); merging of the results of these studies; creating a global picture, defining parameters predicting specific developmental outcomes; provision of guidelines for research and practise on child development; international visibility (publications, tools, method-development).

Additional Information

If selected for funding, we will formate a global interdisciplinary team of renowned developmental scientists and their labs to further unravel the ontogeny of development: From conception to adulthood, physical and mental health, and from a 'salutogenic perspective'. While above-mentioned variables (e.g. optimal outcome) and studies (what will be studied and how; see also below) are not defined here, due to page restrictions, this will be done in a second step in great detail (main proposal). It is important to note that this project needs to build upon a solid empirical basis. Based on regional expertise clusters we will merge research and knowledge gained until today and design a new comprehensive approach to study various developmental aspects, covering the major developmental domains (speech-language, communication, cognition) to define parameters predicting better outcomes in order to create early educational and interventional programmes for the youngest. Given this can only be mentioned and not outlined here, we would be delighted if you considered this idea worth following up and give the youngest a chance to thrive and bloom. In a full proposal we will cover different expertise levels and dicsiplines aiming for a global realization of most recent trends in developmental research (e.g. as Barbot et al., 2020: doi: 10.1002/cad.20359. outlined in their Manifesto for new directions in developmental science). Within the framework of our team there will be leading experts (see also mentioned paper, line above) from various fields; from the National Institute of Child Health and Human Development (USA), University of Californa Los Angeles (USA), Cambridge University (UK), Nanyang Technical University (Singapore), Murdoch Children's Research Institute (Australia), Oslo University (Norway), and the University of Goettingen (Germany) but also from NGOs and philanthropic societies that are interested in this topic. Renowned Scientists - without name dropping as we want our idea to be convincing, not the manes involved - who certainly have published in the highest-ranked multidisciplinary journals, received funding from national (e.g., NIH), international (e.g., European Union financed), governmental and private foundations (e.g. Bill and Melinda Gates Foundation), are well known in their respective fields, have agreed to gather for this endeavor and guarantee for a wide visibility and impact of this project. We all believe in the great potential of a joint approach and would follow up on this idea with all our passion. Thank you very much, indeed, for considering this application. May it be vague at this stage - in terms of methods, disciplines, measures, definitions, scientific rigor, timeline, key indicators and costs - it will be concise and convincing in the next step. On behalf a global consortium, many renowned scientist have already consented to be part of this project if funded, I would like to thank the Templeton World Charity Foundation Committee very much for considering our Step 1/RFI proposal.