Project acronym TIMBER
Project Northern Europe's timber resource - chronology, origin and exploitation
Researcher (PI) Aoife Daly
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2015-STG
Summary Empirical evidence for the history of the exploitation of the timber resource in Northern Europe is stored in the material record. Archaeological finds, art-historical objects and built heritage have provided us with an extensive dataset of precisely dated wood from heritage contexts. This material is the key to details about the usage, condition and availability of the timber resource and details of trade in timber, including the maritime timber trade, from c. AD 1100 to 1700. Tree-ring studies provide not only the precise felling date for the trees used, but also allow the identification of the tree’s region of origin. However, there are gaps in the material evidence, and other analysis techniques will be explored to supply answers where the tree-ring evidence falls short.
Through study of archival material (such as merchant-books and letters, customs rolls, legal and administrative records), along with targeted analysis of historical timber, the history and dendro-archaeology will be combined to study resource availability, ownership, logistics, economics, market mechanisms and politics of trade in timber as a bulk building material.
Using both tried and trusted methods that I have refined, incorporating a holistic approach, and developing a range of innovative new procedures including my recent break-through in non-invasive analysis methods, key archaeological structures will be examined. These key constructions are spread throughout the period under examination and each represent a different piece of the timber resource and timber trade puzzle, either temporally or geographically. These specific cases will make it possible for me to investigate specific, but contrasting questions on the regionality, chronology and geography of the maritime timber trade in Northern Europe, over a period of six centuries.
Combining the material and historic records and applying a range of analysis techniques this project will transform our understanding of the past timber trade.
Summary
Empirical evidence for the history of the exploitation of the timber resource in Northern Europe is stored in the material record. Archaeological finds, art-historical objects and built heritage have provided us with an extensive dataset of precisely dated wood from heritage contexts. This material is the key to details about the usage, condition and availability of the timber resource and details of trade in timber, including the maritime timber trade, from c. AD 1100 to 1700. Tree-ring studies provide not only the precise felling date for the trees used, but also allow the identification of the tree’s region of origin. However, there are gaps in the material evidence, and other analysis techniques will be explored to supply answers where the tree-ring evidence falls short.
Through study of archival material (such as merchant-books and letters, customs rolls, legal and administrative records), along with targeted analysis of historical timber, the history and dendro-archaeology will be combined to study resource availability, ownership, logistics, economics, market mechanisms and politics of trade in timber as a bulk building material.
Using both tried and trusted methods that I have refined, incorporating a holistic approach, and developing a range of innovative new procedures including my recent break-through in non-invasive analysis methods, key archaeological structures will be examined. These key constructions are spread throughout the period under examination and each represent a different piece of the timber resource and timber trade puzzle, either temporally or geographically. These specific cases will make it possible for me to investigate specific, but contrasting questions on the regionality, chronology and geography of the maritime timber trade in Northern Europe, over a period of six centuries.
Combining the material and historic records and applying a range of analysis techniques this project will transform our understanding of the past timber trade.
Max ERC Funding
1 472 199 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym TRANSJIHAD
Project Explaining Transnational Jihad - Patterns of Escalation and Containment
Researcher (PI) Mona SHEIKH
Host Institution (HI) DANSK INSTITUT FOR INTERNATIONALE STUDIER
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary TRANSJIHAD aims at advancing our understanding of one of the greatest contemporary challenges on the international agenda for peace and security, namely the ability of transnational jihadist movements to tap into local conflicts, hence escalating violence. TRANSJIHAD specifically investigates the questions of how jihadist conflicts become transnational and under what circumstances they can be contained. The project also aims at developing an interdisciplinary analytical framework, which combines micro- and macro level approaches to jihadism, drawing from both Religious Studies, Security Studies and Peace & Conflict Studies.
Methodologically, TRANSJIHAD dissolves the scientific dichotomy between inside- and outside-oriented approaches to the study of transnational jihadist conflicts, widening prevailing scientific understandings of transnationalization processes. The project uniquely combines i) a quantitative examination of transnationalization processes drawing from the Religion and Armed Conflicts (RELAC) dataset based at Uppsala University, ii) comparative case studies of the mechanisms of escalation and de-escalation of jihadist conflicts across Asia, the Middle East, the Arab Peninsula and Africa focusing on the movements of Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, the Taleban, and Boko Haram, iii) securitization analyses of the macro-level conflict structures that transnational jihadist movements tap into, and finally iv) sociotheological worldview analyses of potential changes in jihadist conflict imagery during transnationalization processes.
With its focus on macro-level conflict structures, TRANSJIHAD also contributes to developing a new framework for thinking about containment, providing an alternative to both the micro-level countering discourses embraced by much of the radicalization research, and the containment thinking that stems from the treatment of jihadist conflicts as civil wars in the peace and conflict literature.
Summary
TRANSJIHAD aims at advancing our understanding of one of the greatest contemporary challenges on the international agenda for peace and security, namely the ability of transnational jihadist movements to tap into local conflicts, hence escalating violence. TRANSJIHAD specifically investigates the questions of how jihadist conflicts become transnational and under what circumstances they can be contained. The project also aims at developing an interdisciplinary analytical framework, which combines micro- and macro level approaches to jihadism, drawing from both Religious Studies, Security Studies and Peace & Conflict Studies.
Methodologically, TRANSJIHAD dissolves the scientific dichotomy between inside- and outside-oriented approaches to the study of transnational jihadist conflicts, widening prevailing scientific understandings of transnationalization processes. The project uniquely combines i) a quantitative examination of transnationalization processes drawing from the Religion and Armed Conflicts (RELAC) dataset based at Uppsala University, ii) comparative case studies of the mechanisms of escalation and de-escalation of jihadist conflicts across Asia, the Middle East, the Arab Peninsula and Africa focusing on the movements of Islamic State, Al-Qaeda, the Taleban, and Boko Haram, iii) securitization analyses of the macro-level conflict structures that transnational jihadist movements tap into, and finally iv) sociotheological worldview analyses of potential changes in jihadist conflict imagery during transnationalization processes.
With its focus on macro-level conflict structures, TRANSJIHAD also contributes to developing a new framework for thinking about containment, providing an alternative to both the micro-level countering discourses embraced by much of the radicalization research, and the containment thinking that stems from the treatment of jihadist conflicts as civil wars in the peace and conflict literature.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 056 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym UNITRAN
Project Understanding Intergenerational Transmissions: A Cross-Disciplinary Approach
Researcher (PI) Mads Meier Jæger
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary This project combines the best sociology and economics has to offer to establish a new understanding of intergenerational transmissions. We know that socioeconomic outcomes are correlated across generations, but we have only little understanding of the mechanisms and intergenerational transmissions which generate these correlations.
In this project, we propose to combine formal models of intergenerational transmissions in economics with substantive insights from sociology to develop new and improved models of intergenerational transmissions. Furthermore, we combine longitudinal data with state-of-the-art econometric methods to analyze intergenerational transmissions of cultural endowments and educational expectations, the role of the extended family in intergenerational transmissions, and finally the utility of educational decision making.
The project has the potential to significantly improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of intergenerational transmissions and, in doing so, to contribute new knowledge to inform policies to promote social mobility.
Summary
This project combines the best sociology and economics has to offer to establish a new understanding of intergenerational transmissions. We know that socioeconomic outcomes are correlated across generations, but we have only little understanding of the mechanisms and intergenerational transmissions which generate these correlations.
In this project, we propose to combine formal models of intergenerational transmissions in economics with substantive insights from sociology to develop new and improved models of intergenerational transmissions. Furthermore, we combine longitudinal data with state-of-the-art econometric methods to analyze intergenerational transmissions of cultural endowments and educational expectations, the role of the extended family in intergenerational transmissions, and finally the utility of educational decision making.
The project has the potential to significantly improve our understanding of the causes and consequences of intergenerational transmissions and, in doing so, to contribute new knowledge to inform policies to promote social mobility.
Max ERC Funding
1 358 389 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-01-01, End date: 2018-06-30
Project acronym VITAL
Project The Vitality of Disease - Quality of Life in the Making
Researcher (PI) Ayo Juhani Wahlberg
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2014-STG
Summary Epidemiological reports from around the world suggest that more people than ever before are living with (especially chronic) diseases. As a consequence, sustained efforts to reduce morbidity and mortality rates have been joined by systematised efforts to improve the lives – the quality of life – of those living with disease in ways that are measurable and auditable.
VITAL will focus on the making of ‘quality of life’. While social studies of medicine have of late been marked by a ‘bio-turn’, it is apparent that within contemporary medicine, life is envisaged as much more than cellular and molecular activity; it is also a social activity and a personal experience. Not only is life sustained, it is also lived. In recent decades, morbid living – living with disease – has come to be the object of novel forms of knowledge, expertise, measurement and management while also generating new medical practices and attendant ways of relating to oneself.
VITAL suggests a shift in attention from the ways in which the social sciences have previously studied morbid living and related issues of quality of life. Rather than continue longstanding efforts to understand how people cope with disease or to refine definitions and instruments for measuring the quality of life of the sick, in VITAL we will empirically study the co-production of ‘quality of life’ within healthcare through four ethnographically-grounded studies of how ‘quality of life’ is assembled, mobilised, negotiated and practiced in concrete medical settings. The four studies will focus on how knowledge about living with disease is assembled and mobilised, on the one hand, and how morbid living is negotiated and practiced on the other.
The key outcomes of VITAL will be theoretical advancement of understandings of vitality in the 21st century beyond molecular biology and methodological innovation to facilitate empirical study of co-production processes that involve social science knowledge and practice.
Summary
Epidemiological reports from around the world suggest that more people than ever before are living with (especially chronic) diseases. As a consequence, sustained efforts to reduce morbidity and mortality rates have been joined by systematised efforts to improve the lives – the quality of life – of those living with disease in ways that are measurable and auditable.
VITAL will focus on the making of ‘quality of life’. While social studies of medicine have of late been marked by a ‘bio-turn’, it is apparent that within contemporary medicine, life is envisaged as much more than cellular and molecular activity; it is also a social activity and a personal experience. Not only is life sustained, it is also lived. In recent decades, morbid living – living with disease – has come to be the object of novel forms of knowledge, expertise, measurement and management while also generating new medical practices and attendant ways of relating to oneself.
VITAL suggests a shift in attention from the ways in which the social sciences have previously studied morbid living and related issues of quality of life. Rather than continue longstanding efforts to understand how people cope with disease or to refine definitions and instruments for measuring the quality of life of the sick, in VITAL we will empirically study the co-production of ‘quality of life’ within healthcare through four ethnographically-grounded studies of how ‘quality of life’ is assembled, mobilised, negotiated and practiced in concrete medical settings. The four studies will focus on how knowledge about living with disease is assembled and mobilised, on the one hand, and how morbid living is negotiated and practiced on the other.
The key outcomes of VITAL will be theoretical advancement of understandings of vitality in the 21st century beyond molecular biology and methodological innovation to facilitate empirical study of co-production processes that involve social science knowledge and practice.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 770 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-06-01, End date: 2020-05-31
Project acronym WATERWORLDS
Project Waterworlds: Natural environmental disasters and social resilience in anthropological perspective
Researcher (PI) Kirsten Hastrup
Host Institution (HI) KOBENHAVNS UNIVERSITET
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary The present times are haunted by a sense of vulnerability in the face of major environmental disasters and global climate change. Whatever course and speed the current changes may accrue, their effects on the human world are already manifest. People suffer from a loss of habitual natural resources, from fear of an increasingly unpredictable nature, and from social disruptions as natural habitats are destroyed. Water is the most vital natural resource; it is the sine qua non of human life, and the idea of the present project is to study local, social responses to environmental disasters related to water. They are the melting of ice in the Arctic and in other glacier areas, the rising of seas that flood islands and coastal communities, and the drying of lands accelerating desertification in large parts of Africa and elsewhere. The ambition is to contribute to a renewed theory of social resilience that builds on the actualities of social life in distinct localities, and on human agency as the basis for people s quest for certainty. The proposed research is groundbreaking empirically as well as theoretically. Empirically it contributes a substantial ethnographic supplement to the sweeping diagnoses of the global malaises captured in notions like global warming . Theoretically, the project will allow for a new, general understanding of the effects of environmental disaster on social life, and of the responsibility that people take locally to ensure the survival of their community. New concepts will be developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research and worldwide dialogue. The larger vision is to rethink the human implications of climate change in the wider world, including Europe, by way of an explication of what is and what can be done on the ground. Technologies are useful, but the human and social potential is vital in long-term adaptation to new environmental realities. Frontier research as proposed here will show how.
Summary
The present times are haunted by a sense of vulnerability in the face of major environmental disasters and global climate change. Whatever course and speed the current changes may accrue, their effects on the human world are already manifest. People suffer from a loss of habitual natural resources, from fear of an increasingly unpredictable nature, and from social disruptions as natural habitats are destroyed. Water is the most vital natural resource; it is the sine qua non of human life, and the idea of the present project is to study local, social responses to environmental disasters related to water. They are the melting of ice in the Arctic and in other glacier areas, the rising of seas that flood islands and coastal communities, and the drying of lands accelerating desertification in large parts of Africa and elsewhere. The ambition is to contribute to a renewed theory of social resilience that builds on the actualities of social life in distinct localities, and on human agency as the basis for people s quest for certainty. The proposed research is groundbreaking empirically as well as theoretically. Empirically it contributes a substantial ethnographic supplement to the sweeping diagnoses of the global malaises captured in notions like global warming . Theoretically, the project will allow for a new, general understanding of the effects of environmental disaster on social life, and of the responsibility that people take locally to ensure the survival of their community. New concepts will be developed to facilitate interdisciplinary research and worldwide dialogue. The larger vision is to rethink the human implications of climate change in the wider world, including Europe, by way of an explication of what is and what can be done on the ground. Technologies are useful, but the human and social potential is vital in long-term adaptation to new environmental realities. Frontier research as proposed here will show how.
Max ERC Funding
2 979 882 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-01-01, End date: 2014-06-30
Project acronym WILLOW
Project WIreLess LOWband communications: massive and ultra-reliable access
Researcher (PI) Petar Popovski
Host Institution (HI) AALBORG UNIVERSITET
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), PE7, ERC-2014-CoG
Summary The overall objective of WILLOW is to make wireless communication a true commodity by enabling lowband communications: low-rate links for massive number of devices and ultra-reliable connectivity. This research effort is a major endeavour in the area of wireless communications, taking a different path from the mainstream research that aims at “4G, but faster”. Lowband communication is the key to enabling new applications, such as massive sensing, ultra-reliable vehicular links and wireless cloud connectivity with guaranteed minimal rate. The research in WILLOW is centred on two fundamental issues. First, it is the efficient communication with short packets, in which the data size is comparable to the size of the metadata, i.e. control information, which is not the case in broadband communication. Communication of short packets that come from a massive number of devices and/or need to meet a latency constraint requires fundamental rethinking of the packet structure and the associated communication protocols. Second is the system architecture in which graceful rate degradation, low latency and massive access can exist simultaneously with the broadband services. The principles from WILLOW will be applied to: (a) clean-slate wireless systems; (b) reengineer existing wireless systems. Option (b) is unique to lowband communication that does not require high physical-layer speed, but can reuse the physical layer of an existing system and redefine the metadata/data relationship to achieve massive/ultra-reliable communication. WILLOW carries high risk by conjecturing that it is possible to support an unprecedented number of connected devices and wireless reliability levels. Considering the timeliness and the relevance, the strong track record of the PI and the rich wireless research environment at Aalborg University, WILLOW is poised to make a breakthrough towards lowband communications and create the technology that will enable a plethora of new wireless usage modes.
Summary
The overall objective of WILLOW is to make wireless communication a true commodity by enabling lowband communications: low-rate links for massive number of devices and ultra-reliable connectivity. This research effort is a major endeavour in the area of wireless communications, taking a different path from the mainstream research that aims at “4G, but faster”. Lowband communication is the key to enabling new applications, such as massive sensing, ultra-reliable vehicular links and wireless cloud connectivity with guaranteed minimal rate. The research in WILLOW is centred on two fundamental issues. First, it is the efficient communication with short packets, in which the data size is comparable to the size of the metadata, i.e. control information, which is not the case in broadband communication. Communication of short packets that come from a massive number of devices and/or need to meet a latency constraint requires fundamental rethinking of the packet structure and the associated communication protocols. Second is the system architecture in which graceful rate degradation, low latency and massive access can exist simultaneously with the broadband services. The principles from WILLOW will be applied to: (a) clean-slate wireless systems; (b) reengineer existing wireless systems. Option (b) is unique to lowband communication that does not require high physical-layer speed, but can reuse the physical layer of an existing system and redefine the metadata/data relationship to achieve massive/ultra-reliable communication. WILLOW carries high risk by conjecturing that it is possible to support an unprecedented number of connected devices and wireless reliability levels. Considering the timeliness and the relevance, the strong track record of the PI and the rich wireless research environment at Aalborg University, WILLOW is poised to make a breakthrough towards lowband communications and create the technology that will enable a plethora of new wireless usage modes.
Max ERC Funding
1 994 411 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-04-01, End date: 2020-03-31
