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This book presents the findings of research projects conducted by CREA (Community of Researchers on Excellence for all), a research community based in Barcelona, showing how social transformation combines scientific excellence with the political and social impact of the research. Analyzing the impact of pursuing social sciences research by providing examples of achievements and opportunities despite barriers and obstacles encountered along the way, it is of interest for a broad spectrum of scholars from the field of social sciences - particularly public sociology - as well as from other sciences such as biology and neuroscience.

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Chapter 1. CREA and our path towards socially relevant social sciences.- Chapter 2. Dialogic relations and interactions as an alternative to power.- Chapter 3. The dialogic self: preventive socialization.- Chapter 4. Successful Actions: democratic sociology for democratic societies.

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Marta Soler is Professor of Sociology at the University of Barcelona and director of CREA (Community of Research on Excellence for All). She served at the ORCID board of directors and is the Editor of the journal "International Sociology". She is currently the Main Researcher of the H2020 Project "SOLIDUS" on the analysis of solidarity acts during the crisis in Europe. Further, she is the Knowledge Manager Coordinator of the FP7 Project "IMPACT-EV" on the evaluation of scientific, political and social impact of research. The work developed at IMPACT-EV has led to the development of SIOR (Social Impact Open Repository), the first open digital repository to display, store and cite the social impact of research results. She is Chair of the Research Network "Social Theory" at the European Sociological Association. She joined CREA as a junior researcher in 1992 and since then she has participated in national and European studies on strategies to overcome exclusion. In 2001, she graduated from Harvard, with a dissertation on literary gatherings and empowerment of the working class. Some years later she spoke about this study at the Havens Center at the University of Wisconsin, Madison, in a lecture titled "Beyond Bourdieu". Back in Spain she continued this work discussing speech acts theory through the analysis of communicative acts, and applying this analysis to gender inequalities and gender violence in different domains.

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