Social cohesion – the ‘fabric of society’ that harnesses societal sustainability and wellbeing of citizens – faces escalating threats from community erosion and polarization.

Current scholarship on social cohesion has identified basic mechanisms that connect individuals, groups, or institutions. However, more complex cross-level analyses, integrating mechanisms at individual-, group-, and institutional levels simultaneously, are lacking.

Consequently, very little is known about the dynamics of, and interplay between, horizontal and vertical ties creating cohesion. This is problematic, because social cohesion only increases when the strengthening of specific connections does not unravel other ties in the social fabric.

Our breakthrough approach addresses these more complex interactions among and between horizontal and vertical ties, providing frontier knowledge to weave a stronger fabric of society.

SOCION’s scientific breakthrough is to identify the intricate mechanisms that maintain or improve social relations between individuals and within groups in a changing demographic context, without undermining connectedness to other groups and institutions (e.g., the judicial system, or the EU).

We propose that key ingredients for complex forms of social cohesion can be found at the intersection of horizontal and vertical ties.

The core research question is:

How can connections between individuals, groups, and institutions be strengthened without unintentionally unravelling them elsewhere in society?