Anchoring Ethical Technology (AI and Data) Usage in the Educational Practice (ETH-TECH)
An Erasmus+ Cooperation Partnership in Higher Education project (no. 2024-1-IT02-KA220-HED-000255527; 400,000 Euro), coordinated by the University of Padua, Italy.
The ETH-TECH project promotes an ethical and critical approach to the use of artificial intelligence, data and digital technologies in teaching and learning in higher education, with a particular focus on the training of future teachers, educators and trainers. The project addresses the gap between general ethical guidelines and their practical application, helping educators translate ethical reflection into concrete decisions and practices.
The international project team develops practical resources to help universities translate ethical principles into educational practice. These include an ETH-TECH conceptual framework, institutional and faculty self-reflection tools, open educational resources, awareness-raising sessions and participatory Educathons involving students, academics, civil society and technology-sector stakeholders.
Project partners: University of Padua (Italy, coordinator), Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), Helmut Schmidt University – University of the Federal Armed Forces Hamburg (Germany), University of Barcelona (Spain), and MED – Italian Association for Media Education (Italy).
UBB team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Renata M. Heilman, Bianca V. Marinica, Bogdan Glăvan, Lorina Culic and Anișoara Pavelea.
Longitudinal Educational Achievements: Reducing iNequalities (LEARN)
Grant agreement ID: 101132531
LEARN (Longitudinal Educational Achievements: Reducing iNequalities) is a Horizon Europe project investigating how educational inequalities develop across Europe through the analysis of longitudinal data from nine countries. At Babeș-Bolyai University, the Romanian team is led by Prof. Dr. Oana Negru-Subțirică, Principal Investigator and head of the SELFID Lab, with Daria Dodan, a doctoral researcher and SELFID Lab member, contributing to the project. Together with partners across Europe, the team participates in consortium meetings, international workshops, conference presentations, and dissemination events—including meetings hosted in Amsterdam, Zurich, and Cluj-Napoca—to advance collaborative research and develop evidence-based recommendations for more equitable education systems.
Principal Investigator for Romania: Oana Negru-Subtirica
Team members: Daria Dodan, Renata M. Heilman, Raluca Diana Szekely-Copîndean, Lavinia Damian-Ilea
Related SELFID studies: GOALID, PERSEIDA, and TRAIDES.
More information about the LEARN project is available on the official LEARN website ↗.
From Dialogue to Data: A Cross-National Study of Parents’ Digital Surveillance of Teenagers
An international research project supported by a Collaboration Grant from the European Association of Developmental Psychology (EADP).
This cross-national study examines how and why parents use digital technologies to monitor teenagers aged 12–18, including location-tracking applications, online school platforms, and digital banking tools. Drawing on questionnaire data from parents in the Netherlands, Romania, Türkiye, and Croatia, the project investigates similarities and differences in digital surveillance practices across countries and how these practices relate to parent–adolescent communication, relationship quality, and parental well-being.
Project lead: Savannah Boele (Erasmus University Rotterdam, the Netherlands).
Romanian team: Daria Dodan (Ph.D. student, Romanian study coordinator, Babeș-Bolyai University).
International collaborators: Ilknur Coban (Tekirdağ Namık Kemal University, Türkiye); Ana Žulec Ivanković (Catholic University of Croatia, Croatia); Anke Visscher (Tilburg University, the Netherlands).
Exploratory Research Project “The relationship between identity and behavior: A longitudinal study and online intervention”
Supported by a grant of the Ministry of Research, Innovation and Digitization, CNCS/CCCDI – UEFISCDI, project number PN-III-P4-ID-PCE-2020-0179, within PNCDI III, aprox. 250,000 Euro.
This exploratory research project aims to develop an online school-based intervention to strengthen identity development and prepare the young generation for a future labor market marked by perpetual technological changes.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Adrian Opre, Oana Benga, Lavinia E. Damian, Eleonora Ioana Pop, Casandra Timar-Anton, Catalina Petrus-Pop, Bianca V. Marinica
Turn and Face the Strange Changes: Real-Time Goal Regulation of Worker versus Student Emerging Adults, in the COVID-19 Pandemic
A Small Grant Award financed by the Society for the Study of Emerging Adulthood (SSEA).
This project aims to investigate day-to-day personal goal pursuits of emerging adults from two distinct social backgrounds, namely working adults and university students using an experience sampling methodology.
Team: Casandra Timar-Anton (principal investigator), Oana Negru-Subtirica (supervisor)
Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project “Promoting social inclusion skills in a post-truth world: A gamified online platform and curriculum” (PROMIS)
An Erasmus+ Strategic Partnership project no. 2019-1-RO01-KA203-063157 (339,106 Euro), coord. Babes-Bolyai University, Romania.
An international team of university scholars has developed the PROMIS project as a response to the “post truth” world, where youth increasingly rely on information from unverified and often undocumented sources coming from different social media outlets. Disadvantaged and marginalized groups, like immigrants, ethnic minorities, people with low socioeconomic status, women, people with disabilities, etc. are especially affected by online misinformation. Our team includes 7 organizations from 6 European countries which got together to develop evidence-based instruments about social inclusion, using our research expertise on relevant research topics, such as identity, prejudice, and social relationships.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Adrian Opre, Lavinia E. Damian, Dana Opre, Bogdan Glavan, Bianca V. Marinica, Casandra Timar-Anton
Goal contents and goal regulation strategies in youth identity development: A longitudinal investigation (GOALID)
Financed through a Young Research Teams Grant awarded by the National University Research Council (PN-III-P1-1.1-TE-2016-0292).
In this research project we aim to investigate the longitudinal relations between goal contents and identity processes in multiple identity domains and to analyze how goal regulation strategies are longitudinally linked to identity processes, especially during developmental transitions.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Lavinia E. Damian, Eleonora Ioana Pop, Bogdan Glavan, Casandra Timar-Anton
Effects of Parenting Perfectionism
A postdoctoral research grant financed by the Executive Unit for Financing Higher Education, Research, Development and Innovation (UEFISCDI) (PN-III-P1-1.1-PD-2016-1246; no. 86/ 2018).
This three-wave study investigates longitudinal effects of parenting perfectionism on parenting subjective experience, parental behaviors, adolescent perfectionism, adolescent emotional and social development. Adolescents from 6th to 11th grade and one of their parents participate in this study.
Team: Lavinia E. Damian, professor Oana Benga (mentor)
Innovative Curriculum for Strong Identities in Diverse Europe (INSIDE)
An Erasmus+ K2 Strategic Partnership Project (n°2016-1-LT01-KA203-023220), coord. Mykolas Romeris University, Lithuania.
The aim of the project is to build the capacity of university students, teachers, researchers, and youth workers to carry out identity-related applied and research work with youth to facilitate optimal identity development among diverse groups of young people in Europe. The project applies interdisciplinary, transnational and trans-sectoral approach and seeks to integrate research, teaching and innovative practical work with youth. The project is implemented by Mykolas Romeris University (coordinator, Lithuania), University of Bologna (Italy), Babeș-Bolyai University (Romania), University of Bordeaux (France), Cardinal Wyszyński University in Warsaw (Poland), and Tolerant Youth Association (Lithuania).
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Bogdan Glavan, Lavinia E. Damian, Eleonora Ioana Pop, Carina Matei
Perfectionism in Self and Identity Development (PERSEIDA)
Positive academic and vocational adjustment is an important aspect of adolescent development. Research on positive youth development (e.g., Larson, 2000; Lerner et al., 2009) has emphasized the importance of understanding the personal and contextual factors that contribute to positive developmental outcomes.
Building on this perspective, the PERSEIDA project investigated how identity and perfectionism develop together during adolescence and how their interplay relates to positive academic and vocational adjustment. Using a four-wave longitudinal design, we examined personal and parental dimensions of identity and perfectionism to better understand the factors associated with these developmental processes and adolescents' adjustment.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Lavinia E. Damian, Eleonora Ioana Pop, Bogdan Glavan, Carina Matei
Identity development and positive adaptation in diasporas
A project financed by ERSTE Foundation (Austria) through a Fellowship for Social Research Grant.
In the context of work migration in the European space, linked to both acculturation and globalization of employability, this project analyzed the norms, beliefs, and practices the Romanian diaspora transports or transforms. I applied an in-depth, mixed-methods investigation of identity in adult migrants, from the perspective of ethnic and personal identity (i.e., work), complemented by operational indicators of positive personal and social adaptation in the new country.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica
Transylvania Adolescent Identity Development Study (TRAIDES)
This longitudinal panel study investigated identity development in adolescents over the span of one academic year.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Ioana Pop, Alexandra Tiganasu, Ionel Blaga
Financial socialization of emerging adults: The roles of parents, work, and personal values
Coordinator: Dr. Mihaela Friedlmeier, Grand Valley State University, USA.
This cross-cultural project examines predictors for young adults’ financial knowledge and behaviors, and how these in turn influence financial well-being and overall life satisfaction. We investigate the role of several socialization agents (i.e., parents, school, work experiences, friends) with a focus on parental influences. First-year college students and one of their parents participate in this study.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Lavinia E. Damian
Identity in emerging adulthood: A ten-nation cross-cultural study
Coordinator: Dr. Elisabetta Crocetti, Utrecht University, The Netherlands.
This cross-cultural project analyzed the dynamics of identity processes (i.e., commitment, exploration in-depth, reconsideration of commitments) in emerging adults, tapping into personal and cultural variables that may shape identity formation in this developmental period.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica (coordinator), Eleonora Ioana Pop
International Society for the Study of Behavioral Development-Jacobs Foundation (ISSBD-JF) Mentored Fellowship for Early Career Scholars
Awarded by the International Society for the Study of Behavioural Development and Jacobs Foundation, under the mentorship of Prof. dr. Joachim Stoeber (School of Psychology, University of Kent).
The project tapped into the role of parental expectations and criticism in adolescents’ perfectionism development and uncovered how high parental expectations are associated with higher socially prescribed perfectionism. With respect to outcomes of perfectionism, the research looked at how adolescents’ perfectionism relates with their general well-being in terms of positive and negative affect. Also, it enquired into the way adolescents orient their achievement goals and are engaged at school depending on their perfectionism levels.
Team: Lavinia E. Damian
Intentionality, goals, and self-regulation in the development of youth in Romania: Elaboration and implementation of complex methodologies (PN2 PD nr. 412/2010)
A post-doctoral grant awarded by the National University Research Council.
This project focused on constructing and testing complex methodologies to appraise intentionality in Romanian youth. As constructs like goals and self-regulation are not necessarily intrinsic to the Romanian culture, I wanted to depict if and how these constructs can be integrated in Romanian youth self-development. To this purpose, I employed qualitative, mixed-methods, and survey studies, taking into account the peculiarities of the Romanian culture.
Team: Oana Negru-Subtirica