Project acronym MEDIGRA
Project Mechanics of Energy Dissipation in Dense Granular Materials
Researcher (PI) Ioannis Vardoulakis
Host Institution (HI) NATIONAL TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF ATHENS - NTUA
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary Granular materials are of interest to different fields of the physical sciences and engineering. To model their behaviour, either a solid- or fluid mechanics approach is used. Rather than deforming uniformly, granular fluids develop thin shear-bands, which mark areas of flow, material failure and energy dissipation. The MEDIGRA project proposes a thorough experimental, theoretical and numerical study of the Mechanics of Energy DIssipation in dense GRAnular materials. The fundamental challenge faced by the project is to quantify the various energy dissipation mechanisms in dense granular materials using innovative thermo-poromechanical experiments. The measured characteristics are expected to lead to the formulation of appropriate analytical and numerical tools aimed to describe the mechanical behaviour of granular materials from the rigorous angle of energetics. In particular, the project proposes to: 1) Design, develop, install and exploit a novel Thermographic High Speed Cylinder Shear Apparatus (THSCSA) to study the properties of the mechanical and thermal boundary layer that is forming at the inner rotating-drum material interface, as well as determining the required thermographic properties of granular materials. 2) Convincingly quantify the way the total energy dissipation is split into heat production, grain breakage and other mechanisms, using the project-developed THSCSA apparatus and other advanced experimental apparatuses. 3) Develop physical models and robust numerical tools capable of incorporating the experimentally obtained dissipation characteristics. 4) Test the knowledge acquired within the project in two applications (shear segregation and landslide modelling). The project aims to advance our knowledge on the basic physics behind long-standing open problems such as the “heat-flow paradox” in earthquake mechanics, the lifetime prediction of imminent catastrophic landslides and the applicability of continuum approximations to segregation phenomena.
Summary
Granular materials are of interest to different fields of the physical sciences and engineering. To model their behaviour, either a solid- or fluid mechanics approach is used. Rather than deforming uniformly, granular fluids develop thin shear-bands, which mark areas of flow, material failure and energy dissipation. The MEDIGRA project proposes a thorough experimental, theoretical and numerical study of the Mechanics of Energy DIssipation in dense GRAnular materials. The fundamental challenge faced by the project is to quantify the various energy dissipation mechanisms in dense granular materials using innovative thermo-poromechanical experiments. The measured characteristics are expected to lead to the formulation of appropriate analytical and numerical tools aimed to describe the mechanical behaviour of granular materials from the rigorous angle of energetics. In particular, the project proposes to: 1) Design, develop, install and exploit a novel Thermographic High Speed Cylinder Shear Apparatus (THSCSA) to study the properties of the mechanical and thermal boundary layer that is forming at the inner rotating-drum material interface, as well as determining the required thermographic properties of granular materials. 2) Convincingly quantify the way the total energy dissipation is split into heat production, grain breakage and other mechanisms, using the project-developed THSCSA apparatus and other advanced experimental apparatuses. 3) Develop physical models and robust numerical tools capable of incorporating the experimentally obtained dissipation characteristics. 4) Test the knowledge acquired within the project in two applications (shear segregation and landslide modelling). The project aims to advance our knowledge on the basic physics behind long-standing open problems such as the “heat-flow paradox” in earthquake mechanics, the lifetime prediction of imminent catastrophic landslides and the applicability of continuum approximations to segregation phenomena.
Max ERC Funding
981 600 €
Duration
Start date: 2008-11-01, End date: 2011-10-31
Project acronym MINDREHAB
Project Consciousness In basic Science And Neurorehabilitation
Researcher (PI) Morten Overgaard
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2009-StG
Summary This project studies the topic of human consciousness from a multidisciplinary perspective. Human consciousness can be defined as the inner subjective experience of mental states such as perceptions, judgments, thoughts, intentions to act, feelings or desires. These experiences are to be described from a subjective, phenomenal first-person account. On the other hand, cognitive neurosciences explore the neural correlates with respect to brain topology and brain dynamics from an objective third-person account.
Despite a great interest in consciousness among cognitive neuroscientists, there are yet no general agreement on definitions or models, and no attempts to draw conclusions from the existing body of work to make progress in the treatment of patients. While it is generally the case that research in cognitive neuroscience has a minimal influence on clinical work in neurorehabilitation, this is very much the case in consciousness studies. Here, so far, there is no direct connection to clinical practice
MindRehab will make use of an integrated approach to find new ways to understand cognitive dysfunctions and to actually rehabilitate patients with cognitive problems after brain injury. This integrated approach, using consciousness studies to create progress in a clinical area, is novel and does not exist as an explicit goal for any other research group in the world. The objective of MindRehab is to integrate three aspects: Philosophy and basic research on consciousness, and clinical work in neurorehabilitation. Furthermore, the objective is to realize a number of research projects leading to novel contributions at the frontier of all three domains. However, contrary to all other current research projects in this field, the emphasis is put on the latter the clinical work.
Summary
This project studies the topic of human consciousness from a multidisciplinary perspective. Human consciousness can be defined as the inner subjective experience of mental states such as perceptions, judgments, thoughts, intentions to act, feelings or desires. These experiences are to be described from a subjective, phenomenal first-person account. On the other hand, cognitive neurosciences explore the neural correlates with respect to brain topology and brain dynamics from an objective third-person account.
Despite a great interest in consciousness among cognitive neuroscientists, there are yet no general agreement on definitions or models, and no attempts to draw conclusions from the existing body of work to make progress in the treatment of patients. While it is generally the case that research in cognitive neuroscience has a minimal influence on clinical work in neurorehabilitation, this is very much the case in consciousness studies. Here, so far, there is no direct connection to clinical practice
MindRehab will make use of an integrated approach to find new ways to understand cognitive dysfunctions and to actually rehabilitate patients with cognitive problems after brain injury. This integrated approach, using consciousness studies to create progress in a clinical area, is novel and does not exist as an explicit goal for any other research group in the world. The objective of MindRehab is to integrate three aspects: Philosophy and basic research on consciousness, and clinical work in neurorehabilitation. Furthermore, the objective is to realize a number of research projects leading to novel contributions at the frontier of all three domains. However, contrary to all other current research projects in this field, the emphasis is put on the latter the clinical work.
Max ERC Funding
1 641 232 €
Duration
Start date: 2010-06-01, End date: 2015-05-31
Project acronym MIX2FIX
Project Hybrid, organic-inorganic chalcogenide optoelectronics
Researcher (PI) Thomas STERGIOPOULOS
Host Institution (HI) ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE8, ERC-2018-COG
Summary The new generation of optoelectronics seeks for emerging semiconductors which combine high performance with low cost. Lead halide organic-inorganic perovskites manifest as excellent optoelectronic materials for this purpose, but at the expense of robustness and environmental compatibility. This presents a major challenge which this research addresses directly. Viable alternatives have to be identified. To tackle this challenge, MIX2FIX proposes to develop a new class of solution-processable optoelectronic devices based on air-stable, non-toxic metal chalcogenides endowed with an organic part, which will facilitate solution-processing and potentially enrich the compounds with the spectacular properties of halide perovskites. To achieve this, the CoG project has set the following objectives: (i) designing and developing optoelectronically-active, organic-inorganic chalcogenide thin films that have never been explored before, by mimicking strategies from established perovskite technology, (ii) devising means to improve their optoelectronic quality so as to be comparable with the best single-crystal semiconductors and (iii) implementing optimized materials into boundary-pushing PV and LED devices. Addressing these objectives will enable the development of novel functional hybrids at the boundaries of perovskite and chalcogenide thin films. With this, optoelectronics with efficiency and stability, comparable or higher than those of lead halide perovskite or chalcopyrite devices, will be demonstrated. This project will therefore permit the transition for emerging optoelectronic materials from toxic lead halide perovskites to green hybrid chalcogenides. Consolidating this unproven but disruptive technology will secure sustainable future for other areas of interest beyond photovoltaics, displays and lighting such as in X-Rays detectors and phototransistors or even beyond optoelectronics, in systems such as batteries and supercapacitors.
Summary
The new generation of optoelectronics seeks for emerging semiconductors which combine high performance with low cost. Lead halide organic-inorganic perovskites manifest as excellent optoelectronic materials for this purpose, but at the expense of robustness and environmental compatibility. This presents a major challenge which this research addresses directly. Viable alternatives have to be identified. To tackle this challenge, MIX2FIX proposes to develop a new class of solution-processable optoelectronic devices based on air-stable, non-toxic metal chalcogenides endowed with an organic part, which will facilitate solution-processing and potentially enrich the compounds with the spectacular properties of halide perovskites. To achieve this, the CoG project has set the following objectives: (i) designing and developing optoelectronically-active, organic-inorganic chalcogenide thin films that have never been explored before, by mimicking strategies from established perovskite technology, (ii) devising means to improve their optoelectronic quality so as to be comparable with the best single-crystal semiconductors and (iii) implementing optimized materials into boundary-pushing PV and LED devices. Addressing these objectives will enable the development of novel functional hybrids at the boundaries of perovskite and chalcogenide thin films. With this, optoelectronics with efficiency and stability, comparable or higher than those of lead halide perovskite or chalcopyrite devices, will be demonstrated. This project will therefore permit the transition for emerging optoelectronic materials from toxic lead halide perovskites to green hybrid chalcogenides. Consolidating this unproven but disruptive technology will secure sustainable future for other areas of interest beyond photovoltaics, displays and lighting such as in X-Rays detectors and phototransistors or even beyond optoelectronics, in systems such as batteries and supercapacitors.
Max ERC Funding
2 731 250 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym MOS
Project Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century
Researcher (PI) Mette Birkedal Bruun
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary The objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.
Summary
The objective of Manifestations of Solitude: Withdrawal and Engagement in the long seventeenth-century is to demonstrate how the creation of zones of unworldliness within the world structures re-ligious practice. We will examine withdrawal in its historical settings and uncover the facetted na-ture of this phenomenon in the seventeenth-century religious culture, thus offering insights and tools for a better understanding of the representation of religious experience in European culture.
Working across cultural and confessional boundaries, the project explores appropriations of the appeal that the Christian be in the world but not of the world: in texts, architecture, images and mu-sic, and it examines the ways in which these media are employed to prompt and sustain with¬drawal from the world. The project focuses on ten institutional social units (e.g. the abbey, the Konventikel, the household), which manifest solitude in different ways. It examines such units through ten exem-plary places (e.g. Herrnhut, Saint-Cyr) and their cultural and reli¬gious life, drawing on materials such as architectural plans, interior decoration, treatises on theology and aesthetics, letters, diaries, epitaphs, emblems, portraits, devotional images, sermons and musical pieces.
The backbone of the project is an innovative strategy for interdisciplinary analysis which traces the generation of a symbolically charged space around religious withdrawals. With this analytical tool we will examine how symbols of ‘world’, ‘solitude’ and the demarcation between them are materialized in forms ranging from material culture (architecture, furnishing), via artistic, perfor-mative expressions (devotional images, musical pieces) to literary topoi and metaphors and the in-fluence on such forms of contemporary aesthetic sensibilities. The project examines the cultivation of the religious self: shaping a sym¬bolically charged space – and shaped in turn by this space.
Max ERC Funding
1 250 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-02-01, End date: 2017-03-31
Project acronym MSG
Project Making Sense of Games: A Methodology for Humanistic Game Analysis
Researcher (PI) Espen Johannes AARSETH
Host Institution (HI) IT-UNIVERSITETET I KOBENHAVN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary Making Sense of Games (MSG) will build a methodology for the humanistic study of games, and develop a theory of how ludic meaning is produced.
Following the pervasive, global growth of video gaming culture and the games industry, the multi-disciplinary field of game studies has grown exponentially in the last 15 years, with numerous new journals, conferences, university programs and research departments.
However, still lacking at this ‘adolescent’ stage of the field’s development are game-specific methods and theoretical foundations necessary to train researchers and build curricula. In aesthetic games research there is not yet any widely accepted methodology for game analysis, and there has not yet been any large-scale, long-term attempt to produce a theoretical platform that can support and advance the field.
MSG aims to fill this gap by combining fundamental hermeneutic approaches (semiotics, reception theory, reader response, theories of representation, narrative theory) with recent theories of ludic structure (game ontology) into a hermeneutic theory of game meaning, which can be used as a set of tools and concepts for game analysis and criticism. MSG will be a triple first for aesthetic game research: a five-year research program, a hermeneutic theory of games, and a team-based effort to build an interdisciplinary methodology.
The results from MSG will speak to many of the current public concerns and debates about games, such as gamer culture, games’ cultural and artistic status, the representation of minorities, misogyny, violence and even addiction. MSG will demonstrate the strong usefulness of humanistic approaches not only to game studies itself, but also to the 21st century’s most vibrant new cultural sector. It will also provide other aesthetic fields (literary studies, film studies, art history) with theoretical models, critical insights, and a rich empirical material for comparative exploration.
Summary
Making Sense of Games (MSG) will build a methodology for the humanistic study of games, and develop a theory of how ludic meaning is produced.
Following the pervasive, global growth of video gaming culture and the games industry, the multi-disciplinary field of game studies has grown exponentially in the last 15 years, with numerous new journals, conferences, university programs and research departments.
However, still lacking at this ‘adolescent’ stage of the field’s development are game-specific methods and theoretical foundations necessary to train researchers and build curricula. In aesthetic games research there is not yet any widely accepted methodology for game analysis, and there has not yet been any large-scale, long-term attempt to produce a theoretical platform that can support and advance the field.
MSG aims to fill this gap by combining fundamental hermeneutic approaches (semiotics, reception theory, reader response, theories of representation, narrative theory) with recent theories of ludic structure (game ontology) into a hermeneutic theory of game meaning, which can be used as a set of tools and concepts for game analysis and criticism. MSG will be a triple first for aesthetic game research: a five-year research program, a hermeneutic theory of games, and a team-based effort to build an interdisciplinary methodology.
The results from MSG will speak to many of the current public concerns and debates about games, such as gamer culture, games’ cultural and artistic status, the representation of minorities, misogyny, violence and even addiction. MSG will demonstrate the strong usefulness of humanistic approaches not only to game studies itself, but also to the 21st century’s most vibrant new cultural sector. It will also provide other aesthetic fields (literary studies, film studies, art history) with theoretical models, critical insights, and a rich empirical material for comparative exploration.
Max ERC Funding
2 006 906 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-11-01, End date: 2021-10-31
Project acronym OscillatoryVision
Project The retinae as windows to the brain: An oscillatory vision
Researcher (PI) Sarang Suresh Dalal
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Several sophisticated image processing circuits have been discovered in the animal retina, many of which manifest massive neural synchrony. A major insight is that this type of synchrony often translates to high-frequency activity on a macroscopic level, but electroretinography (ERG) has not been tapped to examine this potential in humans. Bolstered by our compelling results combining ERG with magnetoencephalography (MEG), this project will address several open questions with respect to human visual processing:
1) Could variable retinal timing be linked to intrinsic image properties and pass on phase variance downstream to visual cortex? Our data suggests the retina responds to moving gratings and natural imagery with non-phase-locked high gamma oscillations (>65 Hz) just like visual cortex, and that slower ERG potentials exhibit strong phase-locking within stimuli but large phase variance across stimuli.
2) Do such retinal gamma band responses, both evoked and induced, directly drive some cortical gamma responses? Pilot data suggests that it can, through retinocortical coherence, our novel ERG-MEG mapping technique.
3) Several kinds of motion have now been shown to elicit massive synchrony in mammalian retina circuits. Does this also result in macroscopic high-frequency activity? If so, our experiments will finally reveal and characterize motion detection by the human retina.
4) Do efferent pathways to the retina exist in humans? We discovered that the ERG exhibits eyes-closed alpha waves strikingly similar to the classic EEG phenomenon and, leveraging our retinocortical coherence technique, that this activity is likely driven by contralateral occipital cortex. Then, can retinal responses be influenced by ongoing cortical activity?
Characterizing retinocortical interaction represents a complete paradigm shift that will be imperative for our understanding of neural synchrony in the human nervous system and enable several groundbreaking new avenues for research.
Summary
Several sophisticated image processing circuits have been discovered in the animal retina, many of which manifest massive neural synchrony. A major insight is that this type of synchrony often translates to high-frequency activity on a macroscopic level, but electroretinography (ERG) has not been tapped to examine this potential in humans. Bolstered by our compelling results combining ERG with magnetoencephalography (MEG), this project will address several open questions with respect to human visual processing:
1) Could variable retinal timing be linked to intrinsic image properties and pass on phase variance downstream to visual cortex? Our data suggests the retina responds to moving gratings and natural imagery with non-phase-locked high gamma oscillations (>65 Hz) just like visual cortex, and that slower ERG potentials exhibit strong phase-locking within stimuli but large phase variance across stimuli.
2) Do such retinal gamma band responses, both evoked and induced, directly drive some cortical gamma responses? Pilot data suggests that it can, through retinocortical coherence, our novel ERG-MEG mapping technique.
3) Several kinds of motion have now been shown to elicit massive synchrony in mammalian retina circuits. Does this also result in macroscopic high-frequency activity? If so, our experiments will finally reveal and characterize motion detection by the human retina.
4) Do efferent pathways to the retina exist in humans? We discovered that the ERG exhibits eyes-closed alpha waves strikingly similar to the classic EEG phenomenon and, leveraging our retinocortical coherence technique, that this activity is likely driven by contralateral occipital cortex. Then, can retinal responses be influenced by ongoing cortical activity?
Characterizing retinocortical interaction represents a complete paradigm shift that will be imperative for our understanding of neural synchrony in the human nervous system and enable several groundbreaking new avenues for research.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 850 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-03-01, End date: 2021-02-28
Project acronym PIPES
Project Professions in International Political Economies
Researcher (PI) Leonard Seabrooke
Host Institution (HI) COPENHAGEN BUSINESS SCHOOL
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2010-StG_20091209
Summary Who writes the rules for the governance of the world economy? The Professions in International Political Economies (PIPES) project is concerned with how professional actors compete in public and private arenas to provide solutions to policy problems. This project provides an original framework to understand how actors in professions shape global economic governance in a manner that commonly ignores public-private distinctions. Rather than conforming to public-private or national-international distinctions, actors create networks through their professional skills. From this context, networks of actors form strategies that link their profession to others to dominate how particular policy problems should be understood.
Actors in professions form coalitions and alliances to protect their power and prestige, as well as to create consensus on how to treat policy problems and what represents world’s best practice. Since actors never really have control over how ideas are interpreted they must strategize in an ongoing fight for control over how certain problems should be understood. PIPES is concerned with mapping how professions fight over how to solve policy problems across a range of issue-areas in the world economy where there is a change in economic practices and markets. These are divided into four areas of governance: finance; health; capacity building; and the environment. Among others, topics to be studied include risk management technologies in finance, low fertility problems in the OECD, and the development of carbon ratings markets. The PIPES research team employs a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative structured and focused comparisons from primary evidence (interviews and primary documents) and participant observation, as well as quantitative analysis through network and content analysis of professional associational contexts. PIPES will also use Case Study Integrity Fora to facilitate knowledge exchange between scholars and practitioners.
Summary
Who writes the rules for the governance of the world economy? The Professions in International Political Economies (PIPES) project is concerned with how professional actors compete in public and private arenas to provide solutions to policy problems. This project provides an original framework to understand how actors in professions shape global economic governance in a manner that commonly ignores public-private distinctions. Rather than conforming to public-private or national-international distinctions, actors create networks through their professional skills. From this context, networks of actors form strategies that link their profession to others to dominate how particular policy problems should be understood.
Actors in professions form coalitions and alliances to protect their power and prestige, as well as to create consensus on how to treat policy problems and what represents world’s best practice. Since actors never really have control over how ideas are interpreted they must strategize in an ongoing fight for control over how certain problems should be understood. PIPES is concerned with mapping how professions fight over how to solve policy problems across a range of issue-areas in the world economy where there is a change in economic practices and markets. These are divided into four areas of governance: finance; health; capacity building; and the environment. Among others, topics to be studied include risk management technologies in finance, low fertility problems in the OECD, and the development of carbon ratings markets. The PIPES research team employs a mixed methods approach that combines qualitative structured and focused comparisons from primary evidence (interviews and primary documents) and participant observation, as well as quantitative analysis through network and content analysis of professional associational contexts. PIPES will also use Case Study Integrity Fora to facilitate knowledge exchange between scholars and practitioners.
Max ERC Funding
1 200 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2011-01-01, End date: 2014-12-31
Project acronym PLANTCULT
Project Identifying the food cultures of ancient Europe: an interdisciplinary investigation of plant ingredients, culinary transformation and evolution through time
Researcher (PI) Soultana Maria Valamoti
Host Institution (HI) ARISTOTELIO PANEPISTIMIO THESSALONIKIS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary The project seeks to explore culinary practice among early farming European communities, from the Aegean to Central Europe, spanning the Neolithic through to the Iron Age (7th-1st millennia BC). The project seeks to identify the ‘food cultures’ of prehistoric Europe, and to reconstruct how cultivated and wild plant foods were transformed into dishes exploring their underlying cultural and environmental contexts and their evolution through time. The project will explore how culinary identities were shaped through the selection of plant foods both in terms of ingredients as well as processing and cooking practices. Thus not only species and meals but also the equipment involved in plant food preparation will be considered for the study area, linking the end product to the relevant technologies of transformation. Macroscopic and microscopic examination of the archaeological finds and experimental replication of various aspects of food preparation techniques informed by ethnographic investigations will form the main analytical tools. The interdisciplinary and contextual examination of the archaeological record will provide a fresh insight into prehistoric cuisine in Europe, the transformation of nature to culture through cooking. The project will revolutionise perceptions of prehistoric food preparation providing insights for the ‘longue durée’ of traditional plant foods constituting Europe’s intangible cultural heritage.
Summary
The project seeks to explore culinary practice among early farming European communities, from the Aegean to Central Europe, spanning the Neolithic through to the Iron Age (7th-1st millennia BC). The project seeks to identify the ‘food cultures’ of prehistoric Europe, and to reconstruct how cultivated and wild plant foods were transformed into dishes exploring their underlying cultural and environmental contexts and their evolution through time. The project will explore how culinary identities were shaped through the selection of plant foods both in terms of ingredients as well as processing and cooking practices. Thus not only species and meals but also the equipment involved in plant food preparation will be considered for the study area, linking the end product to the relevant technologies of transformation. Macroscopic and microscopic examination of the archaeological finds and experimental replication of various aspects of food preparation techniques informed by ethnographic investigations will form the main analytical tools. The interdisciplinary and contextual examination of the archaeological record will provide a fresh insight into prehistoric cuisine in Europe, the transformation of nature to culture through cooking. The project will revolutionise perceptions of prehistoric food preparation providing insights for the ‘longue durée’ of traditional plant foods constituting Europe’s intangible cultural heritage.
Max ERC Funding
1 891 875 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym PLEDGEDEM
Project Pledges in democracy
Researcher (PI) Carsten JENSEN
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2018-COG
Summary Election pledges are supposedly a vital part of representative democracy. Yet we do not in fact know whether and how pledges matter for vote choice and accountability. This project thus asks: Do election pledges matter for voters’ democratic behavior and beliefs?
The role of pledges in citizens’ democratic behavior and beliefs is, surprisingly, virtually unexplored. This project’s ambition is therefore to create a new research agenda that redefines how political scientists think about the link between parties and voters. The project not only advances the research frontier by introducing a new, crucial phenomenon for political scientists to study; it also breaks new ground because it provides original theoretical and methodological tools for this new research agenda.
The key empirical contribution of this project is to collect two path-breaking datasets in the United States, France, and Norway that produce an unbiased estimate of voters’ awareness and use of pledges. The first consists of a set of innovative panel surveys with embedded conjoint experiments conducted both before and after national elections. The second dataset codes all pledges; whether or not they are broken; and how the mass media report on them.
This project is unique in its scientific ambition: It studies the core mechanism of representative democracy as it happens in real time, and does so in several countries. If successful, we will have much firmer knowledge about how voters select parties that best represent them and sanction those that betray their trust – and what this all implies for people’s trust in democracy.
Summary
Election pledges are supposedly a vital part of representative democracy. Yet we do not in fact know whether and how pledges matter for vote choice and accountability. This project thus asks: Do election pledges matter for voters’ democratic behavior and beliefs?
The role of pledges in citizens’ democratic behavior and beliefs is, surprisingly, virtually unexplored. This project’s ambition is therefore to create a new research agenda that redefines how political scientists think about the link between parties and voters. The project not only advances the research frontier by introducing a new, crucial phenomenon for political scientists to study; it also breaks new ground because it provides original theoretical and methodological tools for this new research agenda.
The key empirical contribution of this project is to collect two path-breaking datasets in the United States, France, and Norway that produce an unbiased estimate of voters’ awareness and use of pledges. The first consists of a set of innovative panel surveys with embedded conjoint experiments conducted both before and after national elections. The second dataset codes all pledges; whether or not they are broken; and how the mass media report on them.
This project is unique in its scientific ambition: It studies the core mechanism of representative democracy as it happens in real time, and does so in several countries. If successful, we will have much firmer knowledge about how voters select parties that best represent them and sanction those that betray their trust – and what this all implies for people’s trust in democracy.
Max ERC Funding
1 999 255 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-08-01, End date: 2024-07-31
Project acronym POAB
Project The Psychology of Administrative Burden
Researcher (PI) Martin BÆKGAARD
Host Institution (HI) AARHUS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The burdens of dealing with administrative rules and red tape in government are a fact of life around the world, ranging from small hassles to heavy burdens in the form of stigmatizing processes of proving eligibility and facing potential sanctions. In light of the immense importance of such burdens for millions of people and for the effectiveness of benefit programs, we know surprisingly little about the conditions that give rise to experiences of burden. POAB combines and extends extant theory and uses a unique combination of experimental methods and data to explain how, why, and for whom administrative rules are experienced as burdensome.
POAB studies comprehensive rules regarding unemployment and social benefits and will provide novel register, physiological, and survey measures of welfare benefit recipients’ experiences of burden. I develop and test three theories to explain differences in experiences of burden: 1) How resource scarcity causes cognitive load and hence reduces the ability to cope with rules; 2) How self-efficacy increases the ability to cope with rules; and 3) How perceptions of being undeserving cause stigma and stress.
POAB analyses the causal impact of rules on burden. To this end, I use a unique combination of complementary experimental methods in political science: 1) Cross-national lab experiments with physiological measurement and manipulations of rules, scarcity, efficacy and deservingness perceptions; 2) Cross-national survey experiments to assess different aspects of rules in different contexts; 3) Quasi- and field experiments to assess the impact of rules on register measures of burdens in a real-world context.
POAB offers a fundamentally new interdisciplinary approach by bridging the gap between research on administrative burdens and psychological perspectives. The project’s output will provide profound knowledge of citizens’ experiences of burden and the inequalities in such experiences among recipients of major welfare benefits.
Summary
The burdens of dealing with administrative rules and red tape in government are a fact of life around the world, ranging from small hassles to heavy burdens in the form of stigmatizing processes of proving eligibility and facing potential sanctions. In light of the immense importance of such burdens for millions of people and for the effectiveness of benefit programs, we know surprisingly little about the conditions that give rise to experiences of burden. POAB combines and extends extant theory and uses a unique combination of experimental methods and data to explain how, why, and for whom administrative rules are experienced as burdensome.
POAB studies comprehensive rules regarding unemployment and social benefits and will provide novel register, physiological, and survey measures of welfare benefit recipients’ experiences of burden. I develop and test three theories to explain differences in experiences of burden: 1) How resource scarcity causes cognitive load and hence reduces the ability to cope with rules; 2) How self-efficacy increases the ability to cope with rules; and 3) How perceptions of being undeserving cause stigma and stress.
POAB analyses the causal impact of rules on burden. To this end, I use a unique combination of complementary experimental methods in political science: 1) Cross-national lab experiments with physiological measurement and manipulations of rules, scarcity, efficacy and deservingness perceptions; 2) Cross-national survey experiments to assess different aspects of rules in different contexts; 3) Quasi- and field experiments to assess the impact of rules on register measures of burdens in a real-world context.
POAB offers a fundamentally new interdisciplinary approach by bridging the gap between research on administrative burdens and psychological perspectives. The project’s output will provide profound knowledge of citizens’ experiences of burden and the inequalities in such experiences among recipients of major welfare benefits.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 611 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-02-01, End date: 2024-01-31
