Project acronym WILDPOV
Project National parks and people: Resolving the links between poverty and rule-breaking
Researcher (PI) Freya St John
Host Institution (HI) BANGOR UNIVERSITY
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Poverty is frequently perceived to be the root cause of illegal natural resource use – the hunting or extraction of wildlife not sanctioned by the state. When unsustainable, such activities threaten conservation of ecosystems and endangered species. However, understanding what motivates individuals involved is a major challenge; understandably few are willing to discuss their motives for fear of punishment [1]. Furthermore, severe, multifaceted poverty overlaps with regions prioritised for their globally important biodiversity [2]. This association exacerbates the problem that illegal activities pose for policy-makers responsible for managing and policing the use of nature. The dominant approach to conserving biodiversity is to establish protected areas [3] which typically restrict resource use and manage infractions through law enforcement [4]. However, the designation of such areas does not guarantee compliance, as demonstrated by ongoing infractions [5] and its conspicuous profile on global policy agendas. This includes the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which calls for urgent action to halt biodiversity loss and hunting of protected species [6]. Solving this problematic cocktail of poverty, exclusion from resources and drivers of illegal resource use requires a new approach to understanding why people break rules and to what extent poverty underpins behaviour. Recent advances in cutting-edge techniques for asking sensitive questions are paving the way towards a more accurate understanding of the prevalence and drivers of illegal acts [7]. Combining conservation social science with development studies, criminology and social psychology, this project will examine, for the 1st time, the relative importance of multidimensional poverty and socio-psychological characteristics in dictating people’s involvement in illegal resource use which will be contextualised by histories of national park establishment and how the idea of illegality shifts through time.
Summary
Poverty is frequently perceived to be the root cause of illegal natural resource use – the hunting or extraction of wildlife not sanctioned by the state. When unsustainable, such activities threaten conservation of ecosystems and endangered species. However, understanding what motivates individuals involved is a major challenge; understandably few are willing to discuss their motives for fear of punishment [1]. Furthermore, severe, multifaceted poverty overlaps with regions prioritised for their globally important biodiversity [2]. This association exacerbates the problem that illegal activities pose for policy-makers responsible for managing and policing the use of nature. The dominant approach to conserving biodiversity is to establish protected areas [3] which typically restrict resource use and manage infractions through law enforcement [4]. However, the designation of such areas does not guarantee compliance, as demonstrated by ongoing infractions [5] and its conspicuous profile on global policy agendas. This includes the 2030 Agenda for Sustainable Development which calls for urgent action to halt biodiversity loss and hunting of protected species [6]. Solving this problematic cocktail of poverty, exclusion from resources and drivers of illegal resource use requires a new approach to understanding why people break rules and to what extent poverty underpins behaviour. Recent advances in cutting-edge techniques for asking sensitive questions are paving the way towards a more accurate understanding of the prevalence and drivers of illegal acts [7]. Combining conservation social science with development studies, criminology and social psychology, this project will examine, for the 1st time, the relative importance of multidimensional poverty and socio-psychological characteristics in dictating people’s involvement in illegal resource use which will be contextualised by histories of national park establishment and how the idea of illegality shifts through time.
Max ERC Funding
1 458 770 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym WMOSPOTWU
Project What makes our subjective perception of the world unique?
Researcher (PI) Dietrich Schwarzkopf
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS5, ERC-2012-StG_20111109
Summary We commonly assume that our perception of the world is constant and seamless. This intuition belies the dramatic differences in the perceived quality of a stimulus even within the same individual when it is shown at different spatial locations or different times. Conventional studies of perception treat such unique patterns of perceptual variability as noise and seek to eliminate them by averaging across individuals; however, studying individual heterogeneity in perceptual function can reveal insights into how the brain makes our subjective view of the world unique and personal. All perception must arise in the brain. Despite that, the neural substrates underlying this perceptual heterogeneity remain unknown.
Here, I therefore propose a project to investigate cortical and perceptual heterogeneity in human volunteers using a combination of behavioural psychophysics, functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation. I will explore the heritability of these maps to better understand the factors underlying perceptual heterogeneity. Together, these experiments will provide convergent evidence about how the functional architecture of human sensory cortex gives rise to an individual's unique perception of the world. This will make it possible to reconstruct how an individual perceives the environment, thus giving an insight into their “mind's eye,” and has implications for patients with pathological sensory discontinuities (such as scotomas) or hallucinations, as it will enable us to reveal how they perceive their environment.
Summary
We commonly assume that our perception of the world is constant and seamless. This intuition belies the dramatic differences in the perceived quality of a stimulus even within the same individual when it is shown at different spatial locations or different times. Conventional studies of perception treat such unique patterns of perceptual variability as noise and seek to eliminate them by averaging across individuals; however, studying individual heterogeneity in perceptual function can reveal insights into how the brain makes our subjective view of the world unique and personal. All perception must arise in the brain. Despite that, the neural substrates underlying this perceptual heterogeneity remain unknown.
Here, I therefore propose a project to investigate cortical and perceptual heterogeneity in human volunteers using a combination of behavioural psychophysics, functional magnetic resonance imaging and transcranial magnetic stimulation. I will explore the heritability of these maps to better understand the factors underlying perceptual heterogeneity. Together, these experiments will provide convergent evidence about how the functional architecture of human sensory cortex gives rise to an individual's unique perception of the world. This will make it possible to reconstruct how an individual perceives the environment, thus giving an insight into their “mind's eye,” and has implications for patients with pathological sensory discontinuities (such as scotomas) or hallucinations, as it will enable us to reveal how they perceive their environment.
Max ERC Funding
1 294 840 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2018-01-31
Project acronym WorkOD
Project Work on Demand: Contracting for Work in a Changing Economy
Researcher (PI) Ruth Dukes
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY OF GLASGOW
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2017-STG
Summary Labour law as a scholarly discipline is widely believed to be in crisis. Since the time of its birth, both the nature of working relationships and the context within which they are formed and regulated have changed significantly. The difficulty for scholars is that old concepts don’t perform the function anymore of making sense of the field. Old arguments about the need to protect workers’ interests are met with counterarguments, informed by neoclassical economics, that protective measures inhibit economic growth and increase unemployment.
The WorkOD project aspires to nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the discipline of labour law across the whole of Europe and beyond. Understanding the crisis to have at its heart a crisis of methodology, it aims to develop a new methodology for the study of the key legal concept of the contract for work. It aims to explain trends in the field of work organisation and working relationships and to assess the significance of particular labour market institutions to the achievement of policy goals in a way that is useful to scholars and policy-makers. And it aims to pave the way for future contributions by scholars to policy debates, so that they may influence in positive ways the identification of new economically and socially sustainable solutions to the problem of the division of responsibilities and risks between workers and those for whom they work.
In a marked departure from the state of the art, the project defines contracting for work as an instance of economic, social and legal behaviour, influenced in a variety of ways by the institutional context within which it proceeds. Rejecting the reframing of labour law according to a full blown market paradigm, it argues instead for the utility of sociological methods. Its development of a new methodology begins from a combination of micro and macro perspectives, and a synthesis of approaches drawn from economic sociology, political economy and the sociology of law.
Summary
Labour law as a scholarly discipline is widely believed to be in crisis. Since the time of its birth, both the nature of working relationships and the context within which they are formed and regulated have changed significantly. The difficulty for scholars is that old concepts don’t perform the function anymore of making sense of the field. Old arguments about the need to protect workers’ interests are met with counterarguments, informed by neoclassical economics, that protective measures inhibit economic growth and increase unemployment.
The WorkOD project aspires to nothing less than a fundamental transformation of the discipline of labour law across the whole of Europe and beyond. Understanding the crisis to have at its heart a crisis of methodology, it aims to develop a new methodology for the study of the key legal concept of the contract for work. It aims to explain trends in the field of work organisation and working relationships and to assess the significance of particular labour market institutions to the achievement of policy goals in a way that is useful to scholars and policy-makers. And it aims to pave the way for future contributions by scholars to policy debates, so that they may influence in positive ways the identification of new economically and socially sustainable solutions to the problem of the division of responsibilities and risks between workers and those for whom they work.
In a marked departure from the state of the art, the project defines contracting for work as an instance of economic, social and legal behaviour, influenced in a variety of ways by the institutional context within which it proceeds. Rejecting the reframing of labour law according to a full blown market paradigm, it argues instead for the utility of sociological methods. Its development of a new methodology begins from a combination of micro and macro perspectives, and a synthesis of approaches drawn from economic sociology, political economy and the sociology of law.
Max ERC Funding
1 422 818 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ZFISHSLEEP
Project Resolving the Neuropharmacology and Genetics of Zebrafish Sleep
Researcher (PI) Jason Rihel
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITY COLLEGE LONDON
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), LS5, ERC-2011-StG_20101109
Summary Sleep is a fundamental process, yet the genetic and neural mechanisms that regulate sleep are largely unknown. We have developed the zebrafish as a model system to study the regulation of sleep because it combines the genetics of invertebrates with the basic brain structures that regulate sleep in humans. We previously designed high throughput behavioural assays to measure sleep behaviours in the fish and used genetic tools to demonstrate that the wake-regulating hypocretin/orexin (Hcrt) system is functionally conserved in the zebrafish. We have also used our assays to perform a small molecule screen and identified both conserved and novel candidate regulators of sleep in zebrafish.
In Aim 1, we will observe the behaviour of wild type and Hcrt receptor mutants to a panel of small molecules known to alter zebrafish sleep. This aim tests the hypothesis that these compounds exert their effects on sleep and wake through the Hcrt system. In Aim 2, we will follow-up on the compounds that had differential effects in the mutants. We will monitor the activity of Hcrt neurons in response to drugs using a new neuroluminescent technique to observe the activity of neurons in freely behaving zebrafish larvae. This Aim will extend the behavioural data to the level of neural circuits. In Aim 3, we will use new methods to globally observe neuronal activity in the zebrafish brain to extend our analysis to neurons thought to interact with the Hcrt system. By observing activity across the sleep/wake cycle, we may also uncover novel sleep regulating neurons.
Overall, this project takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of sleep and the Hcrt system, leveraging new methods from chemical biology, molecular genetics, and behavioural neuroscience in the zebrafish. As little is known about the mechanisms and sites of action for most sleep-altering compounds, any progress would advance the sleep field and could have clinical relevance to the treatment of sleep disorders.
Summary
Sleep is a fundamental process, yet the genetic and neural mechanisms that regulate sleep are largely unknown. We have developed the zebrafish as a model system to study the regulation of sleep because it combines the genetics of invertebrates with the basic brain structures that regulate sleep in humans. We previously designed high throughput behavioural assays to measure sleep behaviours in the fish and used genetic tools to demonstrate that the wake-regulating hypocretin/orexin (Hcrt) system is functionally conserved in the zebrafish. We have also used our assays to perform a small molecule screen and identified both conserved and novel candidate regulators of sleep in zebrafish.
In Aim 1, we will observe the behaviour of wild type and Hcrt receptor mutants to a panel of small molecules known to alter zebrafish sleep. This aim tests the hypothesis that these compounds exert their effects on sleep and wake through the Hcrt system. In Aim 2, we will follow-up on the compounds that had differential effects in the mutants. We will monitor the activity of Hcrt neurons in response to drugs using a new neuroluminescent technique to observe the activity of neurons in freely behaving zebrafish larvae. This Aim will extend the behavioural data to the level of neural circuits. In Aim 3, we will use new methods to globally observe neuronal activity in the zebrafish brain to extend our analysis to neurons thought to interact with the Hcrt system. By observing activity across the sleep/wake cycle, we may also uncover novel sleep regulating neurons.
Overall, this project takes a multidisciplinary approach to the study of sleep and the Hcrt system, leveraging new methods from chemical biology, molecular genetics, and behavioural neuroscience in the zebrafish. As little is known about the mechanisms and sites of action for most sleep-altering compounds, any progress would advance the sleep field and could have clinical relevance to the treatment of sleep disorders.
Max ERC Funding
1 902 750 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-02-01, End date: 2017-01-31
