Project acronym Babylearn
Project Neural mechanisms of learning in the infant brain : from Statistics to Rules and Symbols
Researcher (PI) Ghislaine, Marie-Therese, Aline DEHAENE-LAMBERTZ
Host Institution (HI) COMMISSARIAT A L ENERGIE ATOMIQUE ET AUX ENERGIES ALTERNATIVES
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary Infant is the most powerful learner: He learns in a few months to master language, complex social interactions, etc. Powerful statistical algorithms, simultaneously acting at the different levels of functional hierarchies have been proposed to explain learning. I propose here that two other elements are crucial. The first is the particular human cerebral architecture that constrains statistical computations. The second is the human’s ability to access a rich symbolic system. I have planned 6 work packages using the complementary information offered by non-invasive brain-imaging techniques (EEG, MRI and optical topography) to understand the neural bases of infant statistical computations and symbolic competence from 6 months of gestation up until the end of the first year of life.
WP1 studies from which preterm age, statistical inferences can be demonstrated using hierarchical auditory oddball paradigms.
WP2 investigates the consequences of a different pre-term environment (in-utero versus ex-utero) on the early statistical computations in the visual and auditory domains and their consequences on the ongoing brain activity along the first year of life.
WP3 explores the neural bases of how infants infer word meaning and word category, and in particular the role of the left perisylvian areas and of their particular connectivity.
WP4 questions infant symbolic competency. I propose several criteria (generalization, bidirectionality, use of algebraic rules and of logical operations) tested in successive experiments to clarify infant symbolic abilities during the first semester of life.
WP5-6 are transversal to WP1-4: WP5 uses MRI to obtain accurate functional localization and maturational markers correlated with functional results. In WP6, we develop new tools to combine and analyse multimodal brain images.
With this proposal, I hope to clarify the specificities of a neural functional architecture that are critical for human learning from the onset of cortical circuits.
Summary
Infant is the most powerful learner: He learns in a few months to master language, complex social interactions, etc. Powerful statistical algorithms, simultaneously acting at the different levels of functional hierarchies have been proposed to explain learning. I propose here that two other elements are crucial. The first is the particular human cerebral architecture that constrains statistical computations. The second is the human’s ability to access a rich symbolic system. I have planned 6 work packages using the complementary information offered by non-invasive brain-imaging techniques (EEG, MRI and optical topography) to understand the neural bases of infant statistical computations and symbolic competence from 6 months of gestation up until the end of the first year of life.
WP1 studies from which preterm age, statistical inferences can be demonstrated using hierarchical auditory oddball paradigms.
WP2 investigates the consequences of a different pre-term environment (in-utero versus ex-utero) on the early statistical computations in the visual and auditory domains and their consequences on the ongoing brain activity along the first year of life.
WP3 explores the neural bases of how infants infer word meaning and word category, and in particular the role of the left perisylvian areas and of their particular connectivity.
WP4 questions infant symbolic competency. I propose several criteria (generalization, bidirectionality, use of algebraic rules and of logical operations) tested in successive experiments to clarify infant symbolic abilities during the first semester of life.
WP5-6 are transversal to WP1-4: WP5 uses MRI to obtain accurate functional localization and maturational markers correlated with functional results. In WP6, we develop new tools to combine and analyse multimodal brain images.
With this proposal, I hope to clarify the specificities of a neural functional architecture that are critical for human learning from the onset of cortical circuits.
Max ERC Funding
2 554 924 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym BodyCapital
Project The healthy self as body capital: Individuals, market-based societies and body politics in visual twentieth century Europe.
Researcher (PI) Christian Bonah
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE STRASBOURG
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH6, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary From testicular grafting (1920s) to step counting watches (2014), the perceptions and practices of health seeking individuals have been marked by continuities and profound changes during a twentieth century largely shaped by the advent of a communication society. Visuals can be a source to understand transformations by postulating an interactive, performative power of mass media in societies. Which roles did visuals play in changes from public health and human capital collective understandings of the healthy self to new (sometimes debated) perceptions and practices of our bodies as forms of individual capital in an increasing market-economized world?
Pursuing these questions, the project focuses on four fields of investigation -food/nutrition; movement/exercise/sports; sexuality/reproduction/infants and dependency/addiction/overconsumption- in Germany, France and Great Britain studied with an entangled history framework.
Within this scope the project aims at understanding (1)how visuals shape our health related self-understandings and practices in a continuity/discontinuity from the bio-political to the bio-economic logic. (2) The project will explore and explain how and why understandings of body capital differ or overlap in European countries. (3) The project will analyse if and how visual media serve as a promotion-communication hyphen for twentieth century preventive-self understanding.
With a visual perspective on a long twentieth century, the project seeks to better understand changes and continuities in the history of health intertwined with the history of media. This will provide new insights into how the internalization of bodycapital has evolved throughout the past century, how transformations in the media world (from film to TV to internet) play out at the individual level and how health challenges and cultural differences in body perceptions and practices persist in producing social distinction in an age of global information and advanced health systems.
Summary
From testicular grafting (1920s) to step counting watches (2014), the perceptions and practices of health seeking individuals have been marked by continuities and profound changes during a twentieth century largely shaped by the advent of a communication society. Visuals can be a source to understand transformations by postulating an interactive, performative power of mass media in societies. Which roles did visuals play in changes from public health and human capital collective understandings of the healthy self to new (sometimes debated) perceptions and practices of our bodies as forms of individual capital in an increasing market-economized world?
Pursuing these questions, the project focuses on four fields of investigation -food/nutrition; movement/exercise/sports; sexuality/reproduction/infants and dependency/addiction/overconsumption- in Germany, France and Great Britain studied with an entangled history framework.
Within this scope the project aims at understanding (1)how visuals shape our health related self-understandings and practices in a continuity/discontinuity from the bio-political to the bio-economic logic. (2) The project will explore and explain how and why understandings of body capital differ or overlap in European countries. (3) The project will analyse if and how visual media serve as a promotion-communication hyphen for twentieth century preventive-self understanding.
With a visual perspective on a long twentieth century, the project seeks to better understand changes and continuities in the history of health intertwined with the history of media. This will provide new insights into how the internalization of bodycapital has evolved throughout the past century, how transformations in the media world (from film to TV to internet) play out at the individual level and how health challenges and cultural differences in body perceptions and practices persist in producing social distinction in an age of global information and advanced health systems.
Max ERC Funding
2 492 124 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym BoneImplant
Project Monitoring bone healing around endosseous implants: from multiscale modeling to the patient’s bed
Researcher (PI) Guillaume Loïc Haiat
Host Institution (HI) CENTRE NATIONAL DE LA RECHERCHE SCIENTIFIQUE CNRS
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE8, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary Implants are often employed in orthopaedic and dental surgeries. However, risks of failure, which are difficult to anticipate, are still experienced and may have dramatic consequences. Failures are due to degraded bone remodeling at the bone-implant interface, a multiscale phenomenon of an interdisciplinary nature which remains poorly understood. The objective of BoneImplant is to provide a better understanding of the multiscale and multitime mechanisms at work at the bone-implant interface. To do so, BoneImplant aims at studying the evolution of the biomechanical properties of bone tissue around an implant during the remodeling process. A methodology involving combined in vivo, in vitro and in silico approaches is proposed.
New modeling approaches will be developed in close synergy with the experiments. Molecular dynamic computations will be used to understand fluid flow in nanoscopic cavities, a phenomenon determining bone healing process. Generalized continuum theories will be necessary to model bone tissue due to the important strain field around implants. Isogeometric mortar formulation will allow to simulate the bone-implant interface in a stable and efficient manner.
In vivo experiments realized under standardized conditions will be realized on the basis of feasibility studies. A multimodality and multi-physical experimental approach will be carried out to assess the biomechanical properties of newly formed bone tissue as a function of the implant environment. The experimental approach aims at estimating the effective adhesion energy and the potentiality of quantitative ultrasound imaging to assess different biomechanical properties of the interface.
Results will be used to design effective loading clinical procedures of implants and to optimize implant conception, leading to the development of therapeutic and diagnostic techniques. The development of quantitative ultrasonic techniques to monitor implant stability has a potential for industrial transfer.
Summary
Implants are often employed in orthopaedic and dental surgeries. However, risks of failure, which are difficult to anticipate, are still experienced and may have dramatic consequences. Failures are due to degraded bone remodeling at the bone-implant interface, a multiscale phenomenon of an interdisciplinary nature which remains poorly understood. The objective of BoneImplant is to provide a better understanding of the multiscale and multitime mechanisms at work at the bone-implant interface. To do so, BoneImplant aims at studying the evolution of the biomechanical properties of bone tissue around an implant during the remodeling process. A methodology involving combined in vivo, in vitro and in silico approaches is proposed.
New modeling approaches will be developed in close synergy with the experiments. Molecular dynamic computations will be used to understand fluid flow in nanoscopic cavities, a phenomenon determining bone healing process. Generalized continuum theories will be necessary to model bone tissue due to the important strain field around implants. Isogeometric mortar formulation will allow to simulate the bone-implant interface in a stable and efficient manner.
In vivo experiments realized under standardized conditions will be realized on the basis of feasibility studies. A multimodality and multi-physical experimental approach will be carried out to assess the biomechanical properties of newly formed bone tissue as a function of the implant environment. The experimental approach aims at estimating the effective adhesion energy and the potentiality of quantitative ultrasound imaging to assess different biomechanical properties of the interface.
Results will be used to design effective loading clinical procedures of implants and to optimize implant conception, leading to the development of therapeutic and diagnostic techniques. The development of quantitative ultrasonic techniques to monitor implant stability has a potential for industrial transfer.
Max ERC Funding
1 992 154 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym DigitalMemories
Project We are all Ayotzinapa: The role of Digital Media in the Shaping of Transnational Memories on Disappearance
Researcher (PI) Silvana Mandolessi
Host Institution (HI) KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The project seeks to study the role of digital media in the shaping of transnational memories on disappearance. It investigates a novel case that is in process of shaping: the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico in September 2014. The role of the new media in getting citizens’ attention and in marking a “turning point” was crucial to the upsurge of a counter-movement against the Mexican government and qualifies the event as significant for the transnational arena.
The groundbreaking aspect of the project consists in proposing a double approach:
a) a theoretical approach in which “disappearance” is considered as a particular crime that becomes a model for analyzing digital memory. Disappearance is a technology that produces a subject with a new ontological status: the disappeared are non-beings, because they are neither alive nor dead. This ontological status transgresses the clear boundaries separating life and death, past, present and future, materiality and immateriality, personal and collective spheres. “Digital memory”, i.e. a memory mediated by digital technology, is also determined by the transgression of the boundaries of given categories
b) a multidisciplinary approach situating Mexico´s case in a long transnational history of disappearance in the Hispanic World, including Argentina and Spain. This longer history seeks to compare disappearance as a mnemonic object developed in the global sphere –in social network sites as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube– in Mexico and the social performances and artistic representations –literature, photo exhibitions, and films– developed in Spain and Argentina.
The Mexican case represents a paradigm for the redefinition of the relationship between media and memory. The main output of the project will consist in constructing a theoretical model for analyzing digital mnemonic objects in the rise of networked social movements with a transnational scope.
Summary
The project seeks to study the role of digital media in the shaping of transnational memories on disappearance. It investigates a novel case that is in process of shaping: the disappearance of 43 students in Mexico in September 2014. The role of the new media in getting citizens’ attention and in marking a “turning point” was crucial to the upsurge of a counter-movement against the Mexican government and qualifies the event as significant for the transnational arena.
The groundbreaking aspect of the project consists in proposing a double approach:
a) a theoretical approach in which “disappearance” is considered as a particular crime that becomes a model for analyzing digital memory. Disappearance is a technology that produces a subject with a new ontological status: the disappeared are non-beings, because they are neither alive nor dead. This ontological status transgresses the clear boundaries separating life and death, past, present and future, materiality and immateriality, personal and collective spheres. “Digital memory”, i.e. a memory mediated by digital technology, is also determined by the transgression of the boundaries of given categories
b) a multidisciplinary approach situating Mexico´s case in a long transnational history of disappearance in the Hispanic World, including Argentina and Spain. This longer history seeks to compare disappearance as a mnemonic object developed in the global sphere –in social network sites as blogs, Facebook, Twitter and YouTube– in Mexico and the social performances and artistic representations –literature, photo exhibitions, and films– developed in Spain and Argentina.
The Mexican case represents a paradigm for the redefinition of the relationship between media and memory. The main output of the project will consist in constructing a theoretical model for analyzing digital mnemonic objects in the rise of networked social movements with a transnational scope.
Max ERC Funding
1 444 125 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-07-01, End date: 2021-06-30
Project acronym DIPLOFACE
Project Diplomatic Face-Work - between confidential negotiations and public display
Researcher (PI) Rebecca Adler-Nissen
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The rise of social media, coupled with intensifying demands for more transparency and democracy in world politics, brings new challenges to international diplomacy. State leaders and diplomats continue to react to traditional media, but now also attempt to present themselves proactively through tweets, public diplomacy and nation branding. These efforts often take place simultaneously and sometimes interfere directly with closed-door negotiations and its culture of restraint and secrecy. Yet the relationship between confidential diplomacy and public representation remains understudied.
DIPLOFACE will develop a sociologically and anthropologically informed approach to studying how state leaders and diplomats manage their nation’s ‘faces’ in the information age. The project will explore the relationship and tensions between confidential diplomatic negotiations and publicly displayed interventions in various media, applying the micro-sociological concept of ‘face-work’. DIPLOFACE will analyse the complex interactional dynamics that shape the diplomatic techniques and strategies used to convey a nation’s ‘face’ or ‘image of self’. Such face-work is increasingly important for national leaders and diplomats who perform simultaneously on the ‘back-stage’ and the ‘front-stage’ of international relations. DIPLOFACE will identify, theorize and analyse the repertoire of face-saving, face-honouring and face-threatening practices that are employed in confidential negotiations and in public.
DIPLOFACE advances our theoretical understanding of diplomacy in the 21st century significantly beyond existing International Relations and diplomatic theory. Combining participant observation, interviews and media analysis, DIPLOFACE will generate important new knowledge about the relationship between public and confidential multilateral negotiation, how state leaders and diplomats handle new media, and the role of face-saving and face-threatening strategies in international relations.
Summary
The rise of social media, coupled with intensifying demands for more transparency and democracy in world politics, brings new challenges to international diplomacy. State leaders and diplomats continue to react to traditional media, but now also attempt to present themselves proactively through tweets, public diplomacy and nation branding. These efforts often take place simultaneously and sometimes interfere directly with closed-door negotiations and its culture of restraint and secrecy. Yet the relationship between confidential diplomacy and public representation remains understudied.
DIPLOFACE will develop a sociologically and anthropologically informed approach to studying how state leaders and diplomats manage their nation’s ‘faces’ in the information age. The project will explore the relationship and tensions between confidential diplomatic negotiations and publicly displayed interventions in various media, applying the micro-sociological concept of ‘face-work’. DIPLOFACE will analyse the complex interactional dynamics that shape the diplomatic techniques and strategies used to convey a nation’s ‘face’ or ‘image of self’. Such face-work is increasingly important for national leaders and diplomats who perform simultaneously on the ‘back-stage’ and the ‘front-stage’ of international relations. DIPLOFACE will identify, theorize and analyse the repertoire of face-saving, face-honouring and face-threatening practices that are employed in confidential negotiations and in public.
DIPLOFACE advances our theoretical understanding of diplomacy in the 21st century significantly beyond existing International Relations and diplomatic theory. Combining participant observation, interviews and media analysis, DIPLOFACE will generate important new knowledge about the relationship between public and confidential multilateral negotiation, how state leaders and diplomats handle new media, and the role of face-saving and face-threatening strategies in international relations.
Max ERC Funding
1 493 062 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-04-01, End date: 2021-03-31
Project acronym HEXTREME
Project Hexahedral mesh generation in real time
Researcher (PI) Jean-François REMACLE
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary Over one million finite element analyses are preformed in engineering offices every day and finite elements come with the price of mesh generation. This proposal aims at creating two breakthroughs in the art of mesh generation that will be directly beneficial to the finite element community at large. The first challenge of HEXTREME is to take advantage of the massively multi-threaded nature of modern computers and to parallelize all the aspects of the mesh generation process at a fine grain level. Reducing the meshing time by more than one order of magnitude is an ambitious objective: if minutes can become seconds, then success in this research would definitively radically change the way in which engineers deal with mesh generation. This project then proposes an innovative approach to overcoming the major difficulty associated with mesh generation: it aims at providing a fast and reliable solution to the problem of conforming hexahedral mesh generation. Quadrilateral meshes in 2D and hexahedral meshes in 3D are usually considered to be superior to triangular/tetrahedral meshes. Even though direct tetrahedral meshing techniques have reached a level of robustness that allow us to treat general 3D domains, there may never exist a direct algorithm for building unstructured hex-meshes in general 3D domains. In HEXTREME, an indirect approach is envisaged that relies on recent developments in various domains of applied mathematics and computer science such as graph theory, combinatorial optimization or computational geometry. The methodology that is proposed for hex meshing is finally extended to the difficult problem of boundary layer meshing. Mesh generation is one important step of the engineering analysis process. Yet, a mesh is a tool and not an aim. A specific task of the project is dedicated to the interaction with research partners that are committed to beta-test the results of HEXTREME. All the results of HEXTREME will be provided as an open source in Gmsh.
Summary
Over one million finite element analyses are preformed in engineering offices every day and finite elements come with the price of mesh generation. This proposal aims at creating two breakthroughs in the art of mesh generation that will be directly beneficial to the finite element community at large. The first challenge of HEXTREME is to take advantage of the massively multi-threaded nature of modern computers and to parallelize all the aspects of the mesh generation process at a fine grain level. Reducing the meshing time by more than one order of magnitude is an ambitious objective: if minutes can become seconds, then success in this research would definitively radically change the way in which engineers deal with mesh generation. This project then proposes an innovative approach to overcoming the major difficulty associated with mesh generation: it aims at providing a fast and reliable solution to the problem of conforming hexahedral mesh generation. Quadrilateral meshes in 2D and hexahedral meshes in 3D are usually considered to be superior to triangular/tetrahedral meshes. Even though direct tetrahedral meshing techniques have reached a level of robustness that allow us to treat general 3D domains, there may never exist a direct algorithm for building unstructured hex-meshes in general 3D domains. In HEXTREME, an indirect approach is envisaged that relies on recent developments in various domains of applied mathematics and computer science such as graph theory, combinatorial optimization or computational geometry. The methodology that is proposed for hex meshing is finally extended to the difficult problem of boundary layer meshing. Mesh generation is one important step of the engineering analysis process. Yet, a mesh is a tool and not an aim. A specific task of the project is dedicated to the interaction with research partners that are committed to beta-test the results of HEXTREME. All the results of HEXTREME will be provided as an open source in Gmsh.
Max ERC Funding
2 244 238 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-10-01, End date: 2021-09-30
Project acronym MicroParticleControl
Project Controlled synthesis of particulate matter in microfluidics
Researcher (PI) Simon Kuhn
Host Institution (HI) KATHOLIEKE UNIVERSITEIT LEUVEN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), PE8, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Despite the many advantages of microchemical systems and their successful applications in chemical
engineering research, one major drawback greatly limiting their use is their susceptibility to channel clogging
for flows containing particulate matter. Hence, the aim of the proposed research is to overcome the challenge
of clogging in microfluidic devices and to design microfluidic systems that can tolerate particulate matter
and synthesize solid materials according to their specifications (e.g. size, purity, morphology). To reach this
goal, we apply a combined experimental and theoretical approach, in which the experimental results will lead
to model development reflecting the particle formation and interaction kinetics and their coupling to the
hydrodynamics. The novel concept of the proposal is to devise engineering strategies to handle the
particulate matter inside the reactor depending on if the solid material is i) an unwanted and insoluble by-product
of a reaction, or ii) the target compound (e.g. nanoparticle synthesis or crystallization of organic
molecules). Depending on the case we will design different ultrasound application strategies and introduce
nucleation sites to control the location of particle formation within the microchannel. This project will
provide fundamental insight into the physico-chemical phenomena that result in particle formation, growth
and agglomeration processes in continuous flow microdevices, and will provide a theoretical tool for the
prediction of the dynamics of particle-particle, particle-wall and particle-fluid interactions, leading to
innovative microreactor designs.
Summary
Despite the many advantages of microchemical systems and their successful applications in chemical
engineering research, one major drawback greatly limiting their use is their susceptibility to channel clogging
for flows containing particulate matter. Hence, the aim of the proposed research is to overcome the challenge
of clogging in microfluidic devices and to design microfluidic systems that can tolerate particulate matter
and synthesize solid materials according to their specifications (e.g. size, purity, morphology). To reach this
goal, we apply a combined experimental and theoretical approach, in which the experimental results will lead
to model development reflecting the particle formation and interaction kinetics and their coupling to the
hydrodynamics. The novel concept of the proposal is to devise engineering strategies to handle the
particulate matter inside the reactor depending on if the solid material is i) an unwanted and insoluble by-product
of a reaction, or ii) the target compound (e.g. nanoparticle synthesis or crystallization of organic
molecules). Depending on the case we will design different ultrasound application strategies and introduce
nucleation sites to control the location of particle formation within the microchannel. This project will
provide fundamental insight into the physico-chemical phenomena that result in particle formation, growth
and agglomeration processes in continuous flow microdevices, and will provide a theoretical tool for the
prediction of the dynamics of particle-particle, particle-wall and particle-fluid interactions, leading to
innovative microreactor designs.
Max ERC Funding
1 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-03-01, End date: 2021-02-28
Project acronym MIDLAND
Project Developing middle-range theories linking land use displacement, intensification and transitions
Researcher (PI) Patrick, Michel, Francis, Ghislain Meyfroidt
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE CATHOLIQUE DE LOUVAIN
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH3, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Land is a nexus for crucial societal and environmental challenges including food security, access to water, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Development of solutions to balance these tradeoffs and synergies is currently hindered by the lack of theories explaining the conditions under which different pathways of land change occur and lead to different outcomes, integrating human and environmental aspects.
This project will develop and test integrated middle-range theories explaining the linkages between three of the major processes in land systems, i.e., (i) land use intensification and expansion, (ii) land use displacement and trade, and (iii) land use transitions or regime shifts. The work will focus on the emerging agricultural frontier of Southern African dry forests and savannas, which is a threatened and understudied region, and its linkages with distant places.
To overcome current limitations, the project builds on (i) experience in empirical, place-based studies, (ii) strong knowledge of social sciences and human-environment theories, (iii) rigorous inductive and deductive approaches to develop and test theories, and (iv) new ways to analyze linkages between distant social-ecological systems.
We will analyze: (i) The strategic field of actors’ coalitions, institutions and distant linkages in emerging frontiers; (ii) Links between land use displacement, leakage, and local land changes; (iii) Pathways of agricultural expansion and intensification in tropical landscapes; and (iv) The conditions for transformative governance of land systems to foster resilient landscapes that sustain ecosystem services and livelihoods. These results will then be integrated to move towards the next generation of land system science, which will be able to develop, test and be guided by theoretical models. This will contribute to more relevant insights for social-ecological systems broadly and for sustainability and other social and natural sciences.
Summary
Land is a nexus for crucial societal and environmental challenges including food security, access to water, land degradation, biodiversity loss, and climate change. Development of solutions to balance these tradeoffs and synergies is currently hindered by the lack of theories explaining the conditions under which different pathways of land change occur and lead to different outcomes, integrating human and environmental aspects.
This project will develop and test integrated middle-range theories explaining the linkages between three of the major processes in land systems, i.e., (i) land use intensification and expansion, (ii) land use displacement and trade, and (iii) land use transitions or regime shifts. The work will focus on the emerging agricultural frontier of Southern African dry forests and savannas, which is a threatened and understudied region, and its linkages with distant places.
To overcome current limitations, the project builds on (i) experience in empirical, place-based studies, (ii) strong knowledge of social sciences and human-environment theories, (iii) rigorous inductive and deductive approaches to develop and test theories, and (iv) new ways to analyze linkages between distant social-ecological systems.
We will analyze: (i) The strategic field of actors’ coalitions, institutions and distant linkages in emerging frontiers; (ii) Links between land use displacement, leakage, and local land changes; (iii) Pathways of agricultural expansion and intensification in tropical landscapes; and (iv) The conditions for transformative governance of land systems to foster resilient landscapes that sustain ecosystem services and livelihoods. These results will then be integrated to move towards the next generation of land system science, which will be able to develop, test and be guided by theoretical models. This will contribute to more relevant insights for social-ecological systems broadly and for sustainability and other social and natural sciences.
Max ERC Funding
1 498 420 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-05-01, End date: 2021-04-30
Project acronym MiTSoPro
Project Migration and Transnational Social Protection in (post-)crisis Europe
Researcher (PI) Jean-Michel Lafleur
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITE DE LIEGE
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The negative employment and social developments across Europe since the start of the crisis, coupled with increased fiscal constraints and changing migration patterns, have led to increasing depictions of EU and third-country immigrants as ‘abusers’ of their social protection systems. Member States have accordingly sought reduce migrants’ ability to access social protection benefits, despite the fact that they are disproportionately at risk of poverty and social exclusion.
This project looks at the different strategies that migrants have to access social protection within (post) crisis Europe and does so by explicitly integrating social policy and migration studies’ approaches on the phenomenon. More precisely, it aims to study transnational social protection, that we define as migrants’ cross-border strategies to cope with social risks in areas such as health, long-term care, pensions or unemployment that combine entitlements to host and home state-based public welfare policies and market-, family- and community-based practices.
This study thus consists in, first, identifying the social protection policies and programs that home countries make accessible to their citizens abroad, and then compiling this information into an online database. We will then aggregate the results of the database into a Transnational Social Protection Index (TSPIx) in order to determine the overall level of engagement of each state with citizens abroad in a comparative way.
Second, on the basis of the results of the index, we will select case studies of migrants from two EU and two non-EU countries that vary in their level of engagement in providing social protection to their citizens abroad. We will then undertake multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork to qualitatively assess the informal social protection strategies used by migrants and examine their interaction with formal host and home state social protection provision.
Summary
The negative employment and social developments across Europe since the start of the crisis, coupled with increased fiscal constraints and changing migration patterns, have led to increasing depictions of EU and third-country immigrants as ‘abusers’ of their social protection systems. Member States have accordingly sought reduce migrants’ ability to access social protection benefits, despite the fact that they are disproportionately at risk of poverty and social exclusion.
This project looks at the different strategies that migrants have to access social protection within (post) crisis Europe and does so by explicitly integrating social policy and migration studies’ approaches on the phenomenon. More precisely, it aims to study transnational social protection, that we define as migrants’ cross-border strategies to cope with social risks in areas such as health, long-term care, pensions or unemployment that combine entitlements to host and home state-based public welfare policies and market-, family- and community-based practices.
This study thus consists in, first, identifying the social protection policies and programs that home countries make accessible to their citizens abroad, and then compiling this information into an online database. We will then aggregate the results of the database into a Transnational Social Protection Index (TSPIx) in order to determine the overall level of engagement of each state with citizens abroad in a comparative way.
Second, on the basis of the results of the index, we will select case studies of migrants from two EU and two non-EU countries that vary in their level of engagement in providing social protection to their citizens abroad. We will then undertake multi-sited ethnographic fieldwork to qualitatively assess the informal social protection strategies used by migrants and examine their interaction with formal host and home state social protection provision.
Max ERC Funding
1 306 718 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-11-01, End date: 2021-10-31
Project acronym MMS-II
Project The Mamlukisation of the Mamluk Sultanate II: historiography, political order and state formation in fifteenth-century Egypt and Syria
Researcher (PI) Jo Van Steenbergen
Host Institution (HI) UNIVERSITEIT GENT
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH6, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary MMS-II pursues the hypothesis that the Mamluk sultanate was a cultural product constructed in the interaction between state formation and historiography. MMS-II follows up from the ERC-project MMS' focus on the social production of power networks in the Syro-Egyptian sultanate between the 1410s and 1460s, but it does so by directing the themes of political history and Arabic historiography towards entirely new, unexplored horizons. Current understanding of the late medieval Middle East continues to rely heavily on the rich Arabic historiographical production of the period. However, the particular nature, impact and value of this highly politicized historiography remains hugely underexplored and underestimated. MMS-II aims to remedy this, by arguing with and beyond instead of against or outside of this historiography’s subjectivities. It wants to understand its texts as products of particular socio-cultural practices and, at the same time, as a particular type of actors in such practices. Analytically, state formation will be prioritised as one extremely relevant patterned set of effects of such practices. Heuristically, the project will focus on practices related to claims of historical truth and order, asking how Arabic historiographical texts written between the 1410s and the 1460s related to the regularly changing social orders that were produced around the different sultans of these decades. My main hypothesis is that of these texts' active participation in the construction of a particular social memory of one longstanding sultanate of military slaves (‘Mamlukisation’). MMS-II has three specific objectives: the creation of a reference tool for Arabic historiographical texts from the period 1410-1470; the in-depth study of particular sets of these texts; the analysis of political vocabularies in these texts. By thus exploring the inter-subjective re/production of Arabic historiography MMS-II will generate a welcome cultural turn in late medieval Islamic history.
Summary
MMS-II pursues the hypothesis that the Mamluk sultanate was a cultural product constructed in the interaction between state formation and historiography. MMS-II follows up from the ERC-project MMS' focus on the social production of power networks in the Syro-Egyptian sultanate between the 1410s and 1460s, but it does so by directing the themes of political history and Arabic historiography towards entirely new, unexplored horizons. Current understanding of the late medieval Middle East continues to rely heavily on the rich Arabic historiographical production of the period. However, the particular nature, impact and value of this highly politicized historiography remains hugely underexplored and underestimated. MMS-II aims to remedy this, by arguing with and beyond instead of against or outside of this historiography’s subjectivities. It wants to understand its texts as products of particular socio-cultural practices and, at the same time, as a particular type of actors in such practices. Analytically, state formation will be prioritised as one extremely relevant patterned set of effects of such practices. Heuristically, the project will focus on practices related to claims of historical truth and order, asking how Arabic historiographical texts written between the 1410s and the 1460s related to the regularly changing social orders that were produced around the different sultans of these decades. My main hypothesis is that of these texts' active participation in the construction of a particular social memory of one longstanding sultanate of military slaves (‘Mamlukisation’). MMS-II has three specific objectives: the creation of a reference tool for Arabic historiographical texts from the period 1410-1470; the in-depth study of particular sets of these texts; the analysis of political vocabularies in these texts. By thus exploring the inter-subjective re/production of Arabic historiography MMS-II will generate a welcome cultural turn in late medieval Islamic history.
Max ERC Funding
2 000 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31
