Project acronym ChronHib
Project Chronologicon Hibernicum – A Probabilistic Chronological Framework for Dating Early Irish Language Developments and Literature
Researcher (PI) David Stifter
Host Institution (HI) NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH4, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary Early Medieval Irish literature (7th–10th centuries) is vast in extent and rich in genres, but owing to its mostly anonymous transmission, for most texts the precise time and circumstances of composition are unknown. Unless where texts contain historical references, the only clues for a rough chronological positioning of the texts are to be found in their linguistic peculiarities. Phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon of the Irish language changed considerably from Early Old Irish (7th c.) into Middle Irish (c. 10th–12th centuries). However, only the relative sequence of changes is well understood; for most sound changes very few narrow dates have been proposed so far.
It is the aim of Chronologicon Hibernicum to find a common solution for both problems: through the linguistic profiling of externally dated texts (esp. annalistic writing and sources with a clear historical anchorage) and through serialising the emerging linguistic and chronological data, progress will be made in assigning dates to the linguistic changes. Groundbreakingly, this will be done by using statistical methods for the seriation of the data, and for estimating dates using Bayesian inference.
The resultant information will then be used to find new dates for hitherto undated texts. On this basis, a much tighter chronological framework for the developments of the Early Medieval Irish language will be created. In a further step it will be possible to arrive at a better chronological description of medieval Irish literature as a whole, which will have repercussions on the study of the history and cultural and intellectual environment of medieval Ireland and on its connections with the wider world.
The data collected and analysed in this project will form the database Chronologicon Hibernicum which will serve as the authoritative guideline and reference point for the linguistic dating of Irish texts. In the future, the methodology will be transferable to other languages.
Summary
Early Medieval Irish literature (7th–10th centuries) is vast in extent and rich in genres, but owing to its mostly anonymous transmission, for most texts the precise time and circumstances of composition are unknown. Unless where texts contain historical references, the only clues for a rough chronological positioning of the texts are to be found in their linguistic peculiarities. Phonology, morphology, syntax and the lexicon of the Irish language changed considerably from Early Old Irish (7th c.) into Middle Irish (c. 10th–12th centuries). However, only the relative sequence of changes is well understood; for most sound changes very few narrow dates have been proposed so far.
It is the aim of Chronologicon Hibernicum to find a common solution for both problems: through the linguistic profiling of externally dated texts (esp. annalistic writing and sources with a clear historical anchorage) and through serialising the emerging linguistic and chronological data, progress will be made in assigning dates to the linguistic changes. Groundbreakingly, this will be done by using statistical methods for the seriation of the data, and for estimating dates using Bayesian inference.
The resultant information will then be used to find new dates for hitherto undated texts. On this basis, a much tighter chronological framework for the developments of the Early Medieval Irish language will be created. In a further step it will be possible to arrive at a better chronological description of medieval Irish literature as a whole, which will have repercussions on the study of the history and cultural and intellectual environment of medieval Ireland and on its connections with the wider world.
The data collected and analysed in this project will form the database Chronologicon Hibernicum which will serve as the authoritative guideline and reference point for the linguistic dating of Irish texts. In the future, the methodology will be transferable to other languages.
Max ERC Funding
1 804 230 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym CODEX
Project Decoding Domesticate DNA in Archaeological Bone and Manuscripts
Researcher (PI) Daniel Gerard Bradley
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2011-ADG_20110406
Summary Through animal domestication humans profoundly altered their relationship with nature, controlling the breeding of their major food sources for material, social or symbolic profit. Understanding this complex process is a compelling research aim. There is a need to develop new high-resolution genetic tools to put flesh on the bones of this two-millenium long transition. These will take advantage of very recent advances: targeted next generation DNA sequencing, high throughput screening of expertly provenanced archaeological samples, and emerging knowledge of modern cattle, sheep and goat genome science plus their genetic geographies. Combining these, this proposal will develop an ancient DNA data matrix that will be unparalleled in archaeological science. These data will unlock the key genetic changes that accompany the domestic state and the breeding structures that are a consequence of human management. It will also identify the wild and proto-domestic populations that later herds emerge from. A more precise geography and timing of the key changes will enable richer contextualising inform our assessement of why these changes take place. The 10,000 year matrix for each species will function as a standard spatiotemporal reference grid on which any subsequent bone or animal artefact may be placed i.e. via genetic postcoding. Exceptional discontinuities in the matrix will highlight points of strong historical interest such as the emergence of new trade networks, migrations and periods of economic turbulence - perhaps driven by climate fluctuations or plagues. The final work objectives will focus on diachronic sample assemblages selected to have particular import for both historical events and transitions in material culture. For example, manuscript vellum samples will give a uniquely dated series that will enable correlation of genetic change with historical studies of the timing and impact of past animal plagues (e.g. in C 14th and C 18th Europe).
Summary
Through animal domestication humans profoundly altered their relationship with nature, controlling the breeding of their major food sources for material, social or symbolic profit. Understanding this complex process is a compelling research aim. There is a need to develop new high-resolution genetic tools to put flesh on the bones of this two-millenium long transition. These will take advantage of very recent advances: targeted next generation DNA sequencing, high throughput screening of expertly provenanced archaeological samples, and emerging knowledge of modern cattle, sheep and goat genome science plus their genetic geographies. Combining these, this proposal will develop an ancient DNA data matrix that will be unparalleled in archaeological science. These data will unlock the key genetic changes that accompany the domestic state and the breeding structures that are a consequence of human management. It will also identify the wild and proto-domestic populations that later herds emerge from. A more precise geography and timing of the key changes will enable richer contextualising inform our assessement of why these changes take place. The 10,000 year matrix for each species will function as a standard spatiotemporal reference grid on which any subsequent bone or animal artefact may be placed i.e. via genetic postcoding. Exceptional discontinuities in the matrix will highlight points of strong historical interest such as the emergence of new trade networks, migrations and periods of economic turbulence - perhaps driven by climate fluctuations or plagues. The final work objectives will focus on diachronic sample assemblages selected to have particular import for both historical events and transitions in material culture. For example, manuscript vellum samples will give a uniquely dated series that will enable correlation of genetic change with historical studies of the timing and impact of past animal plagues (e.g. in C 14th and C 18th Europe).
Max ERC Funding
2 499 693 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-07-01, End date: 2018-06-30
Project acronym LEGALARCHITECTURES
Project Legal Architectures: The Influence of New Environmental Governance Rules on Environmental Compliance
Researcher (PI) Suzanne Elizabeth Kingston
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE DUBLIN, NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND, DUBLIN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Non-compliance with the EU’s environmental rules is one of the key weaknesses of the EU’s environmental policy. This research investigates the influence that environmental governance laws have on compliance decisions, and how we might best design our laws to maximise compliance. One of the most important trends in European environmental regulatory techniques over the past decade has been the shift from hierarchical, state-led government via command-and-control techniques, to decentralised, society-led governance by local private actors (see, e.g., Jordan et al (2013)). The EU has strongly supported efforts to empower compliance and enforcement by non-State actors, as embodied in the UNECE Aarhus Convention and implementing laws. Yet little is known about how this major change in environmental governance laws has actually influenced compliance levels in practice, and why. Can the design of environmental governance rules influence us not only to comply with the letter of the law, but also to go further? This research seeks to fill that gap by means of an interdisciplinary, bottom-up study of the relationships between the legal architecture of environmental governance and compliance decisions, in a selected field of EU environmental policy (biodiversity), and in three selected States. It is novel in terms of theory, because it tests new hypotheses about the effects environmental governance rules have on compliance. It is novel in terms of methodology, because in testing these hypotheses, it uses techniques that have not up to now been applied to measure the effect of law. It is challenging, because it sits at the intersection between the law and economics, socio-legal and governance/regulatory literatures, and brings together multiple methods from these fields to test its hypotheses. It has potentially high impact, because non-compliance is one of the most serious problems the EU’s environmental policy faces, and is closely linked to environmental outcomes.
Summary
Non-compliance with the EU’s environmental rules is one of the key weaknesses of the EU’s environmental policy. This research investigates the influence that environmental governance laws have on compliance decisions, and how we might best design our laws to maximise compliance. One of the most important trends in European environmental regulatory techniques over the past decade has been the shift from hierarchical, state-led government via command-and-control techniques, to decentralised, society-led governance by local private actors (see, e.g., Jordan et al (2013)). The EU has strongly supported efforts to empower compliance and enforcement by non-State actors, as embodied in the UNECE Aarhus Convention and implementing laws. Yet little is known about how this major change in environmental governance laws has actually influenced compliance levels in practice, and why. Can the design of environmental governance rules influence us not only to comply with the letter of the law, but also to go further? This research seeks to fill that gap by means of an interdisciplinary, bottom-up study of the relationships between the legal architecture of environmental governance and compliance decisions, in a selected field of EU environmental policy (biodiversity), and in three selected States. It is novel in terms of theory, because it tests new hypotheses about the effects environmental governance rules have on compliance. It is novel in terms of methodology, because in testing these hypotheses, it uses techniques that have not up to now been applied to measure the effect of law. It is challenging, because it sits at the intersection between the law and economics, socio-legal and governance/regulatory literatures, and brings together multiple methods from these fields to test its hypotheses. It has potentially high impact, because non-compliance is one of the most serious problems the EU’s environmental policy faces, and is closely linked to environmental outcomes.
Max ERC Funding
1 494 650 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
Project acronym NEWDEALS
Project New Deals in the New Economy
Researcher (PI) Sean O Riain
Host Institution (HI) NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND MAYNOOTH
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2011-StG_20101124
Summary How are European workplaces being transformed? What kinds of new social bargains are emerging across the European Union? How are they being institutionalised? How are new workplace bargains shaped by the broader politics of sectors, regions and national economies?
These questions are crucial to the future of the European ‘social model’. The objective of this research programme is to provide answers to these questions, drawing on cross-national survey research on workplace organisation from 1995 to 2010 and selected industrial case studies in the small open European economies of Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.
These questions also raise crucial theoretical issues. The research reformulates the core elements of the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ framework that has dominated comparative political economy for the past decade (Hall and Soskice, 2001). It improves our understanding of the diverse organisation of capitalism in Europe, of how that diversity is rooted in politically constructed ‘pathways to the future’, and of how capitalism is constructed out of social and institutional capabilities across Europe.
Summary
How are European workplaces being transformed? What kinds of new social bargains are emerging across the European Union? How are they being institutionalised? How are new workplace bargains shaped by the broader politics of sectors, regions and national economies?
These questions are crucial to the future of the European ‘social model’. The objective of this research programme is to provide answers to these questions, drawing on cross-national survey research on workplace organisation from 1995 to 2010 and selected industrial case studies in the small open European economies of Denmark, Ireland and the Netherlands.
These questions also raise crucial theoretical issues. The research reformulates the core elements of the ‘Varieties of Capitalism’ framework that has dominated comparative political economy for the past decade (Hall and Soskice, 2001). It improves our understanding of the diverse organisation of capitalism in Europe, of how that diversity is rooted in politically constructed ‘pathways to the future’, and of how capitalism is constructed out of social and institutional capabilities across Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 320 020 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-01-01, End date: 2017-06-30
Project acronym NorFish
Project North Atlantic Fisheries: An Environmental History, 1400-1700
Researcher (PI) Poul Holm
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2014-ADG
Summary NorFish aims to understand the restructuring of the North Atlantic fisheries, fish markets and fishery-dependent communities in the late medieval and early modern world. The project exploits a multi-disciplinary, humanities-led approach to marine environmental history, assessing and synthesizing the dynamics and significance of the North Atlantic fish revolution, equipped by methodological advances in which the PI has been to the fore in delivering. It establishes a robust quantitative framework of extractions, supplies and prices, while also charting the qualitative preferences and politics that motivated actors of the fish revolution across the North Atlantic.
Fish contributed to environmental and societal change in the North Atlantic for over 300 years, shifting from being a high-priced, limited resource in the late Middle Ages to a low-priced, abundant one by early modern times. Conditioned by market forces, the ‘fish revolution’ of the 1500s and 1600s reshaped alignments in economic power, demography, and politics. With acute consequences in peripheral Atlantic settlements from Newfoundland to Scandinavia, it held strategic importance to all the major western European powers. While the fish revolution catalysed the globalization of the Atlantic world, we lack adequate baselines and trajectories for key questions of natural abundance, supply and demand, cultural preferences, marketing technologies, plus national and regional strategies.
In short, the core questions are what were the natural and economic causes of the fish revolution, how did marginal societies adapt to changing international trade and consumption patterns around the North Atlantic, and how did economic and political actors respond? The answers will help explain the historic role of environment and climate change, how markets impacted marginal communities, and how humans perceived long-term change.
Summary
NorFish aims to understand the restructuring of the North Atlantic fisheries, fish markets and fishery-dependent communities in the late medieval and early modern world. The project exploits a multi-disciplinary, humanities-led approach to marine environmental history, assessing and synthesizing the dynamics and significance of the North Atlantic fish revolution, equipped by methodological advances in which the PI has been to the fore in delivering. It establishes a robust quantitative framework of extractions, supplies and prices, while also charting the qualitative preferences and politics that motivated actors of the fish revolution across the North Atlantic.
Fish contributed to environmental and societal change in the North Atlantic for over 300 years, shifting from being a high-priced, limited resource in the late Middle Ages to a low-priced, abundant one by early modern times. Conditioned by market forces, the ‘fish revolution’ of the 1500s and 1600s reshaped alignments in economic power, demography, and politics. With acute consequences in peripheral Atlantic settlements from Newfoundland to Scandinavia, it held strategic importance to all the major western European powers. While the fish revolution catalysed the globalization of the Atlantic world, we lack adequate baselines and trajectories for key questions of natural abundance, supply and demand, cultural preferences, marketing technologies, plus national and regional strategies.
In short, the core questions are what were the natural and economic causes of the fish revolution, how did marginal societies adapt to changing international trade and consumption patterns around the North Atlantic, and how did economic and political actors respond? The answers will help explain the historic role of environment and climate change, how markets impacted marginal communities, and how humans perceived long-term change.
Max ERC Funding
2 499 265 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-01-01, End date: 2020-12-31
Project acronym SHARECITY
Project SHARECITY: Assessing the practice and sustainability potential of city-based food sharing economies
Researcher (PI) Anna Ray Davies
Host Institution (HI) THE PROVOST, FELLOWS, FOUNDATION SCHOLARS & THE OTHER MEMBERS OF BOARD OF THE COLLEGE OF THE HOLY & UNDIVIDED TRINITY OF QUEEN ELIZABETH NEAR DUBLIN
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH3, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary With planetary urbanization fast approaching there is growing clarity regarding the unsustainability of cities, not least with respect to food consumption. Sharing, including food sharing, is increasingly being identified as one transformative mechanism for sustainable cities: reducing consumption; conserving resources, preventing waste and providing new forms of socio-economic relations. However, such claims currently rest on thin conceptual and empirical foundations. SHARECITY will identify and examine diverse practices of city-based food sharing economies, first determining their form, function and governance and then identifying their impact and potential to reorient eating practices. The research has four objectives: to advance theoretical understanding of contemporary food sharing economies in cities; to generate a significant body of comparative and novel international empirical knowledge about food sharing economies and their governance within global cities; to design and test an assessment framework for establishing the impact of city-based food sharing economies on societal relations, economic vitality and the environment; and to develop and implement a novel variant of backcasting to explore how food sharing economies within cities might evolve in the future. Providing conceptual insights that bridge sharing, social practice and urban transitions theories, SHARECITY will generate a typology of food sharing economies; a database of food sharing activities in 100 global cities; in-depth food sharing profiles of 7 cities from the contrasting contexts of USA, Brazil and Germany, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Australia; a sustainability impact toolkit to enable examination of city-based food sharing initiatives; and scenarios for future food sharing in cities. Conducting such frontier science SHARECITY will open new research horizons to substantively improve understanding of how, why and to what end people share food within cities in the 21st Century.
Summary
With planetary urbanization fast approaching there is growing clarity regarding the unsustainability of cities, not least with respect to food consumption. Sharing, including food sharing, is increasingly being identified as one transformative mechanism for sustainable cities: reducing consumption; conserving resources, preventing waste and providing new forms of socio-economic relations. However, such claims currently rest on thin conceptual and empirical foundations. SHARECITY will identify and examine diverse practices of city-based food sharing economies, first determining their form, function and governance and then identifying their impact and potential to reorient eating practices. The research has four objectives: to advance theoretical understanding of contemporary food sharing economies in cities; to generate a significant body of comparative and novel international empirical knowledge about food sharing economies and their governance within global cities; to design and test an assessment framework for establishing the impact of city-based food sharing economies on societal relations, economic vitality and the environment; and to develop and implement a novel variant of backcasting to explore how food sharing economies within cities might evolve in the future. Providing conceptual insights that bridge sharing, social practice and urban transitions theories, SHARECITY will generate a typology of food sharing economies; a database of food sharing activities in 100 global cities; in-depth food sharing profiles of 7 cities from the contrasting contexts of USA, Brazil and Germany, Greece, Portugal, Ireland and Australia; a sustainability impact toolkit to enable examination of city-based food sharing initiatives; and scenarios for future food sharing in cities. Conducting such frontier science SHARECITY will open new research horizons to substantively improve understanding of how, why and to what end people share food within cities in the 21st Century.
Max ERC Funding
1 860 009 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-10-01, End date: 2021-07-31
Project acronym VOICES
Project Voices Of Individuals: Collectively Exploring Self-determination
Researcher (PI) Eilionóir Teresa Flynn
Host Institution (HI) NATIONAL UNIVERSITY OF IRELAND GALWAY
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The right to make one’s own decisions and to have these decisions respected by law is a basic human freedom which most adults take for granted. However, for many people with disabilities (especially people with intellectual, psycho-social and other cognitive disabilities) this fundamental right has been denied – informally, in the private sphere, and formally, in the public sphere through States’ laws and policies.
Since the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there is an emerging consensus in human rights discourse that all people, regardless of their decision-making skills, should enjoy ‘legal capacity’ on an equal basis—that is, the right to be recognised as a person before the law and the subsequent right to have one’s decisions legally recognised. To date most of the literature on how this right should be realised has been developed by non-disabled scholars without the direct input of people with disabilities themselves.
The VOICES project will take a radical approach to develop new law reform ideas based on this concept of ‘universal legal capacity.’ Its primary objective is to develop reform proposals based on the lived experience of disability. The project will support individuals who self-identify as disabled to develop personal narratives about their experiences in exercising, or being denied, legal capacity. Through a collaborative process, legal and social science scholars will then work with people with disabilities to develop their personal narratives to frame and ground concrete proposals for law reform in previously unexplored areas – including consent to sex, contractual capacity, criminal responsibility and consent to medical treatment. In this way, the legitimacy of people with disabilities’ perspectives on the options for law reform will be validated, and this will create a powerful argument for legal change.
Summary
The right to make one’s own decisions and to have these decisions respected by law is a basic human freedom which most adults take for granted. However, for many people with disabilities (especially people with intellectual, psycho-social and other cognitive disabilities) this fundamental right has been denied – informally, in the private sphere, and formally, in the public sphere through States’ laws and policies.
Since the entry into force of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities, there is an emerging consensus in human rights discourse that all people, regardless of their decision-making skills, should enjoy ‘legal capacity’ on an equal basis—that is, the right to be recognised as a person before the law and the subsequent right to have one’s decisions legally recognised. To date most of the literature on how this right should be realised has been developed by non-disabled scholars without the direct input of people with disabilities themselves.
The VOICES project will take a radical approach to develop new law reform ideas based on this concept of ‘universal legal capacity.’ Its primary objective is to develop reform proposals based on the lived experience of disability. The project will support individuals who self-identify as disabled to develop personal narratives about their experiences in exercising, or being denied, legal capacity. Through a collaborative process, legal and social science scholars will then work with people with disabilities to develop their personal narratives to frame and ground concrete proposals for law reform in previously unexplored areas – including consent to sex, contractual capacity, criminal responsibility and consent to medical treatment. In this way, the legitimacy of people with disabilities’ perspectives on the options for law reform will be validated, and this will create a powerful argument for legal change.
Max ERC Funding
891 386 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-06-01, End date: 2018-11-30
