"The Future of Care – The Care of the Future": State of the Art, Potentials and FutureTrends of professional Care in Germany

• Applicant: Professor Dr. Frank Schulz-Nieswandt
• Subject Area: Sociological Theory ; Empirical Social Research
• Term: since 2023
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 519588076

The current crisis in the context of the Covid 19 pandemic has once again made it clear that without professional nursing care in hospitals, long-term care facilities and outpatient care, current and future challenges cannot be met. More than ever, it is necessary to develop sustainable structural concepts for the future of this occupational field from a scientific perspective. Theses concepts will take the idea of professionalisation seriously and integrate it into an organisational and ethically based framework, which is specific to the occupational field. Our concern is to make a substantial contribution to the recognition and further development of professional nursing as a future task for Germany - and to do so from a nursing science perspective. For this reason, we would like to name the requirements for the professionalization of the nursing profession, point out observable contradictions and inconsistent developments and, last but not least become compatible with international developments. In this process, we are supported by international experts. Our goal is to ensure a significant contribution to the maintenance and improvement of nursing care for the population in Germany with research projects generated in joint workshops - within current pandemic scenarios and beyond. By doing so we will work out the contours of a field which is still not scientifically developed. To this end, we have established a network where 19 scientists have discussed and systematized central aspects as well as already identifiable desiderata, and developed a workshop concept. This concept consists of five contentual topics: 1. qualification process and professionalisation, 2. intersectionality and interculturality, 3. interprofessional cooperation and within cooperation, 4. economisation and social framework, 5. An international comparison.Within these wokshops we will work out a research programme, which will be put into research practice by concrete, interdisciplinary research proposals. The projects of this research program will be carried out in coordinated research groups. In this way, we are pursuing the goal of advancing theory development and practical reflection in order to bring nursing science to the standard required. Last but not least this is a question of the long-term assurance of care. The results will be taken into account to the networks activities.

• DFG Programme: Scientific Networks
• Co-Investigator: Professorin Dr. Sabine Ursula Nover