Project acronym AGNES
Project ACTIVE AGEING – RESILIENCE AND EXTERNAL SUPPORT AS MODIFIERS OF THE DISABLEMENT OUTCOME
Researcher (PI) Taina Tuulikki RANTANEN
Host Institution (HI) JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH3, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary The goals are 1. To develop a scale assessing the diversity of active ageing with four dimensions that are ability (what people can do), activity (what people do do), ambition (what are the valued activities that people want to do), and autonomy (how satisfied people are with the opportunity to do valued activities); 2. To examine health and physical and psychological functioning as the determinants and social and build environment, resilience and personal skills as modifiers of active ageing; 3. To develop a multicomponent sustainable intervention aiming to promote active ageing (methods: counselling, information technology, help from volunteers); 4. To test the feasibility and effectiveness on the intervention; and 5. To study cohort effects on the phenotypes on the pathway to active ageing.
“If You Can Measure It, You Can Change It.” Active ageing assessment needs conceptual progress, which I propose to do. A quantifiable scale will be developed that captures the diversity of active ageing stemming from the WHO definition of active ageing as the process of optimizing opportunities for health and participation in the society for all people in line with their needs, goals and capacities as they age. I will collect cross-sectional data (N=1000, ages 75, 80 and 85 years) and model the pathway to active ageing with state-of-the art statistical methods. By doing this I will create novel knowledge on preconditions for active ageing. The collected cohort data will be compared to a pre-existing cohort data that was collected 25 years ago to obtain knowledge about changes over time in functioning of older people. A randomized controlled trial (N=200) will be conducted to assess the effectiveness of the envisioned intervention promoting active ageing through participation. The project will regenerate ageing research by launching a novel scale, by training young scientists, by creating new concepts and theory development and by producing evidence for active ageing promotion
Summary
The goals are 1. To develop a scale assessing the diversity of active ageing with four dimensions that are ability (what people can do), activity (what people do do), ambition (what are the valued activities that people want to do), and autonomy (how satisfied people are with the opportunity to do valued activities); 2. To examine health and physical and psychological functioning as the determinants and social and build environment, resilience and personal skills as modifiers of active ageing; 3. To develop a multicomponent sustainable intervention aiming to promote active ageing (methods: counselling, information technology, help from volunteers); 4. To test the feasibility and effectiveness on the intervention; and 5. To study cohort effects on the phenotypes on the pathway to active ageing.
“If You Can Measure It, You Can Change It.” Active ageing assessment needs conceptual progress, which I propose to do. A quantifiable scale will be developed that captures the diversity of active ageing stemming from the WHO definition of active ageing as the process of optimizing opportunities for health and participation in the society for all people in line with their needs, goals and capacities as they age. I will collect cross-sectional data (N=1000, ages 75, 80 and 85 years) and model the pathway to active ageing with state-of-the art statistical methods. By doing this I will create novel knowledge on preconditions for active ageing. The collected cohort data will be compared to a pre-existing cohort data that was collected 25 years ago to obtain knowledge about changes over time in functioning of older people. A randomized controlled trial (N=200) will be conducted to assess the effectiveness of the envisioned intervention promoting active ageing through participation. The project will regenerate ageing research by launching a novel scale, by training young scientists, by creating new concepts and theory development and by producing evidence for active ageing promotion
Max ERC Funding
2 044 364 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym ALEM
Project ADDITIONAL LOSSES IN ELECTRICAL MACHINES
Researcher (PI) Matti Antero Arkkio
Host Institution (HI) AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2013-ADG
Summary "Electrical motors consume about 40 % of the electrical energy produced in the European Union. About 90 % of this energy is converted to mechanical work. However, 0.5-2.5 % of it goes to so called additional load losses whose exact origins are unknown. Our ambitious aim is to reveal the origins of these losses, build up numerical tools for modeling them and optimize electrical motors to minimize the losses.
As the hypothesis of the research, we assume that the additional losses mainly result from the deterioration of the core materials during the manufacturing process of the machine. By calorimetric measurements, we have found that the core losses of electrical machines may be twice as large as comprehensive loss models predict. The electrical steel sheets are punched, welded together and shrink fit to the frame. This causes residual strains in the core sheets deteriorating their magnetic characteristics. The cutting burrs make galvanic contacts between the sheets and form paths for inter-lamination currents. Another potential source of additional losses are the circulating currents between the parallel strands of random-wound armature windings. The stochastic nature of these potential sources of additional losses puts more challenge on the research.
We shall develop a physical loss model that couples the mechanical strains and electromagnetic losses in electrical steel sheets and apply the new model for comprehensive loss analysis of electrical machines. The stochastic variables related to the core losses and circulating-current losses will be discretized together with the temporal and spatial discretization of the electromechanical field variables. The numerical stochastic loss model will be used to search for such machine constructions that are insensitive to the manufacturing defects. We shall validate the new numerical loss models by electromechanical and calorimetric measurements."
Summary
"Electrical motors consume about 40 % of the electrical energy produced in the European Union. About 90 % of this energy is converted to mechanical work. However, 0.5-2.5 % of it goes to so called additional load losses whose exact origins are unknown. Our ambitious aim is to reveal the origins of these losses, build up numerical tools for modeling them and optimize electrical motors to minimize the losses.
As the hypothesis of the research, we assume that the additional losses mainly result from the deterioration of the core materials during the manufacturing process of the machine. By calorimetric measurements, we have found that the core losses of electrical machines may be twice as large as comprehensive loss models predict. The electrical steel sheets are punched, welded together and shrink fit to the frame. This causes residual strains in the core sheets deteriorating their magnetic characteristics. The cutting burrs make galvanic contacts between the sheets and form paths for inter-lamination currents. Another potential source of additional losses are the circulating currents between the parallel strands of random-wound armature windings. The stochastic nature of these potential sources of additional losses puts more challenge on the research.
We shall develop a physical loss model that couples the mechanical strains and electromagnetic losses in electrical steel sheets and apply the new model for comprehensive loss analysis of electrical machines. The stochastic variables related to the core losses and circulating-current losses will be discretized together with the temporal and spatial discretization of the electromechanical field variables. The numerical stochastic loss model will be used to search for such machine constructions that are insensitive to the manufacturing defects. We shall validate the new numerical loss models by electromechanical and calorimetric measurements."
Max ERC Funding
2 489 949 €
Duration
Start date: 2014-03-01, End date: 2019-02-28
Project acronym AMETIST
Project Advanced III-V Materials and Processes Enabling Ultrahigh-efficiency ( 50%) Photovoltaics
Researcher (PI) Mircea Dorel GUINA
Host Institution (HI) TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary Compound semiconductor solar cells are providing the highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency, yet their performance lacks far behind the theoretical potential. This is a position we will challenge by engineering advanced III-V optoelectronics materials and heterostructures for better utilization of the solar spectrum, enabling efficiencies approaching practical limits. The work is strongly motivated by the global need for renewable energy sources. To this end, AMETIST framework is based on three vectors of excellence in: i) material science and epitaxial processes, ii) advanced solar cells exploiting nanophotonics concepts, and iii) new device fabrication technologies.
Novel heterostructures (e.g. GaInNAsSb, GaNAsBi), providing absorption in a broad spectral range from 0.7 eV to 1.4 eV, will be synthesized and monolithically integrated in tandem cells with up to 8-junctions. Nanophotonic methods for light-trapping, spectral and spatial control of solar radiation will be developed to further enhance the absorption. To ensure a high long-term impact, the project will validate the use of state-of-the-art molecular-beam-epitaxy processes for fabrication of economically viable ultra-high efficiency solar cells. The ultimate efficiency target is to reach a level of 55%. This would enable to generate renewable/ecological/sustainable energy at a levelized production cost below ~7 ¢/kWh, comparable or cheaper than fossil fuels. The work will also bring a new breath of developments for more efficient space photovoltaic systems.
AMETIST will leverage the leading position of the applicant in topical technology areas relevant for the project (i.e. epitaxy of III-N/Bi-V alloys and key achievements concerning GaInNAsSb-based tandem solar cells). Thus it renders a unique opportunity to capitalize on the group expertize and position Europe at the forefront in the global competition for demonstrating more efficient and economically viable photovoltaic technologies.
Summary
Compound semiconductor solar cells are providing the highest photovoltaic conversion efficiency, yet their performance lacks far behind the theoretical potential. This is a position we will challenge by engineering advanced III-V optoelectronics materials and heterostructures for better utilization of the solar spectrum, enabling efficiencies approaching practical limits. The work is strongly motivated by the global need for renewable energy sources. To this end, AMETIST framework is based on three vectors of excellence in: i) material science and epitaxial processes, ii) advanced solar cells exploiting nanophotonics concepts, and iii) new device fabrication technologies.
Novel heterostructures (e.g. GaInNAsSb, GaNAsBi), providing absorption in a broad spectral range from 0.7 eV to 1.4 eV, will be synthesized and monolithically integrated in tandem cells with up to 8-junctions. Nanophotonic methods for light-trapping, spectral and spatial control of solar radiation will be developed to further enhance the absorption. To ensure a high long-term impact, the project will validate the use of state-of-the-art molecular-beam-epitaxy processes for fabrication of economically viable ultra-high efficiency solar cells. The ultimate efficiency target is to reach a level of 55%. This would enable to generate renewable/ecological/sustainable energy at a levelized production cost below ~7 ¢/kWh, comparable or cheaper than fossil fuels. The work will also bring a new breath of developments for more efficient space photovoltaic systems.
AMETIST will leverage the leading position of the applicant in topical technology areas relevant for the project (i.e. epitaxy of III-N/Bi-V alloys and key achievements concerning GaInNAsSb-based tandem solar cells). Thus it renders a unique opportunity to capitalize on the group expertize and position Europe at the forefront in the global competition for demonstrating more efficient and economically viable photovoltaic technologies.
Max ERC Funding
2 492 719 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31
Project acronym ATOP
Project Atomically-engineered nonlinear photonics with two-dimensional layered material superlattices
Researcher (PI) zhipei SUN
Host Institution (HI) AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2018-ADG
Summary The project aims at introducing a paradigm shift in the development of nonlinear photonics with atomically-engineered two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals superlattices (2DSs). Monolayer 2D materials have large optical nonlinear susceptibilities, a few orders of magnitude larger than typical traditional bulk materials. However, nonlinear frequency conversion efficiency of monolayer 2D materials is typically weak mainly due to their extremely short interaction length (~atomic scale) and relatively large absorption coefficient (e.g.,>5×10^7 m^-1 in the visible range for graphene and MoS2 after thickness normalization). In this context, I will construct atomically-engineered heterojunctions based 2DSs to significantly enhance the nonlinear optical responses of 2D materials by coherently increasing light-matter interaction length and efficiently creating fundamentally new physical properties (e.g., reducing optical loss and increasing nonlinear susceptibilities).
The concrete project objectives are to theoretically calculate, experimentally fabricate and study optical nonlinearities of 2DSs for next-generation nonlinear photonics at the nanoscale. More specifically, I will use 2DSs as new building blocks to develop three of the most disruptive nonlinear photonic devices: (1) on-chip optical parametric generation sources; (2) broadband Terahertz sources; (3) high-purity photon-pair emitters. These devices will lead to a breakthrough technology to enable highly-integrated, high-efficient and wideband lab-on-chip photonic systems with unprecedented performance in system size, power consumption, flexibility and reliability, ideally fitting numerous growing and emerging applications, e.g. metrology, portable sensing/imaging, and quantum-communications. Based on my proven track record and my pioneering work on 2D materials based photonics and optoelectronics, I believe I will accomplish this ambitious frontier research program with a strong interdisciplinary nature.
Summary
The project aims at introducing a paradigm shift in the development of nonlinear photonics with atomically-engineered two-dimensional (2D) van der Waals superlattices (2DSs). Monolayer 2D materials have large optical nonlinear susceptibilities, a few orders of magnitude larger than typical traditional bulk materials. However, nonlinear frequency conversion efficiency of monolayer 2D materials is typically weak mainly due to their extremely short interaction length (~atomic scale) and relatively large absorption coefficient (e.g.,>5×10^7 m^-1 in the visible range for graphene and MoS2 after thickness normalization). In this context, I will construct atomically-engineered heterojunctions based 2DSs to significantly enhance the nonlinear optical responses of 2D materials by coherently increasing light-matter interaction length and efficiently creating fundamentally new physical properties (e.g., reducing optical loss and increasing nonlinear susceptibilities).
The concrete project objectives are to theoretically calculate, experimentally fabricate and study optical nonlinearities of 2DSs for next-generation nonlinear photonics at the nanoscale. More specifically, I will use 2DSs as new building blocks to develop three of the most disruptive nonlinear photonic devices: (1) on-chip optical parametric generation sources; (2) broadband Terahertz sources; (3) high-purity photon-pair emitters. These devices will lead to a breakthrough technology to enable highly-integrated, high-efficient and wideband lab-on-chip photonic systems with unprecedented performance in system size, power consumption, flexibility and reliability, ideally fitting numerous growing and emerging applications, e.g. metrology, portable sensing/imaging, and quantum-communications. Based on my proven track record and my pioneering work on 2D materials based photonics and optoelectronics, I believe I will accomplish this ambitious frontier research program with a strong interdisciplinary nature.
Max ERC Funding
2 442 448 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-09-01, End date: 2024-08-31
Project acronym BETWEEN THE TIMES
Project “Between the Times”: Embattled Temporalities and Political Imagination in Interwar Europe
Researcher (PI) Liisi KEEDUS
Host Institution (HI) TALLINN UNIVERSITY
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary The proposed project offers a new, pan-European intellectual history of the political imagination in the interwar period that places the demise of historicism and progressivism – and the emerging anti-teleological visions of time – at the center of some of its most innovative ethical, political and methodological pursuits. It argues that only a distinctively cross-disciplinary and European narrative can capture the full ramifications and legacies of a fundamental rupture in thought conventionally, yet inadequately confined to the German cultural space and termed “anti-historicism”. It innovates narratively by exploring politically and theoretically interlaced reinventions of temporality across and between different disciplines (theology, jurisprudence, classical studies, literary theory, linguistics, sociology, philosophy), as well as other creative fields. It experiments methodologically by reconstructing the dynamics of political thought prosopographically, through intellectual groupings at the forefront of the scholarly and political debates of the period. It challenges the sufficiency of the standard focus in interwar intellectual history on one or two, at most three (usually “Western” European) national contexts by following out the interactions of these groupings in France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – groupings whose members frequently moved across national contexts. What were the political languages encoded in the reinventions of time, and vice versa – how were political aims translated into and advanced through theoretical innovation? How did these differ in different national contexts, and why? What are the fragmented legacies of this rupture, disbursed in and through the philosophical, methodological and political dicta and dogmas that rooted themselves in post-1945 thought? This project provides the first comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the intellectual identity of Europe and its historicities.
Summary
The proposed project offers a new, pan-European intellectual history of the political imagination in the interwar period that places the demise of historicism and progressivism – and the emerging anti-teleological visions of time – at the center of some of its most innovative ethical, political and methodological pursuits. It argues that only a distinctively cross-disciplinary and European narrative can capture the full ramifications and legacies of a fundamental rupture in thought conventionally, yet inadequately confined to the German cultural space and termed “anti-historicism”. It innovates narratively by exploring politically and theoretically interlaced reinventions of temporality across and between different disciplines (theology, jurisprudence, classical studies, literary theory, linguistics, sociology, philosophy), as well as other creative fields. It experiments methodologically by reconstructing the dynamics of political thought prosopographically, through intellectual groupings at the forefront of the scholarly and political debates of the period. It challenges the sufficiency of the standard focus in interwar intellectual history on one or two, at most three (usually “Western” European) national contexts by following out the interactions of these groupings in France, Britain, Germany, Russia, Czechoslovakia, and Romania – groupings whose members frequently moved across national contexts. What were the political languages encoded in the reinventions of time, and vice versa – how were political aims translated into and advanced through theoretical innovation? How did these differ in different national contexts, and why? What are the fragmented legacies of this rupture, disbursed in and through the philosophical, methodological and political dicta and dogmas that rooted themselves in post-1945 thought? This project provides the first comprehensive answer to these fundamental questions about the intellectual identity of Europe and its historicities.
Max ERC Funding
1 425 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-06-01, End date: 2023-05-31
Project acronym BioELCell
Project Bioproducts Engineered from Lignocelluloses: from plants and upcycling to next generation materials
Researcher (PI) Orlando Rojas Gaona
Host Institution (HI) AALTO KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), PE8, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary BioELCell will deliver ground-breaking approaches to create next material generation based on renewable resources, mainly cellulose and lignin micro- and nano-particles (MNC, MNL). Our action will disassemble and re-engineer these plant-based polymers into functional materials that will respond to the demands of the bioeconomy of the future, critically important to Europe and the world. My ambitious, high gain research plan is underpinned in the use of multiphase systems with ultra-low interfacial tension to facilitate nanocellulose liberation and atomization of lignin solution streams into spherical particles.
BioELCell will design novel routes to control MNC and MNL reassembly in new 1-D, 2-D and 3-D structures. The systematic methodologies that I propose will address the main challenges for lignocellulose processing and deployment, considering the important effects of interactions with water. This BioELCell action presents a transformative approach by integrating complementary disciplines that will lead to a far-reaching understanding of lignocellulosic biopolymers and solve key challenges in their use, paving the way to functional product development. Results of this project permeates directly or indirectly in the grand challenges for engineering, namely, water use, carbon sequestration, nitrogen cycle, food and advanced materials. Indeed, after addressing the key fundamental elements of the research lines, BioELCell vindicates such effects based on rational use of plant-based materials as a sustainable resource, making possible the generation of new functions and advanced materials.
BioELCell goes far beyond what is known today about cellulose and lignin micro and nano-particles, some of the most promising materials of our century, which are emerging as key elements for the success of a sustainable society.
Summary
BioELCell will deliver ground-breaking approaches to create next material generation based on renewable resources, mainly cellulose and lignin micro- and nano-particles (MNC, MNL). Our action will disassemble and re-engineer these plant-based polymers into functional materials that will respond to the demands of the bioeconomy of the future, critically important to Europe and the world. My ambitious, high gain research plan is underpinned in the use of multiphase systems with ultra-low interfacial tension to facilitate nanocellulose liberation and atomization of lignin solution streams into spherical particles.
BioELCell will design novel routes to control MNC and MNL reassembly in new 1-D, 2-D and 3-D structures. The systematic methodologies that I propose will address the main challenges for lignocellulose processing and deployment, considering the important effects of interactions with water. This BioELCell action presents a transformative approach by integrating complementary disciplines that will lead to a far-reaching understanding of lignocellulosic biopolymers and solve key challenges in their use, paving the way to functional product development. Results of this project permeates directly or indirectly in the grand challenges for engineering, namely, water use, carbon sequestration, nitrogen cycle, food and advanced materials. Indeed, after addressing the key fundamental elements of the research lines, BioELCell vindicates such effects based on rational use of plant-based materials as a sustainable resource, making possible the generation of new functions and advanced materials.
BioELCell goes far beyond what is known today about cellulose and lignin micro and nano-particles, some of the most promising materials of our century, which are emerging as key elements for the success of a sustainable society.
Max ERC Funding
2 486 182 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2023-07-31
Project acronym CALLIOPE
Project voCAL articuLations Of Parliamentary Identity and Empire
Researcher (PI) Josephine HOEGAERTS
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2017-STG
Summary What did politicians sound like before they were on the radio and television? The fascination with politicians’ vocal characteristics and quirks is often connected to the rise of audio-visual media. But in the age of the printed press, political representatives also had to ‘speak well’ – without recourse to amplification.
Historians and linguists have provided sophisticated understandings of the discursive and aesthetic aspects of politicians’ language, but have largely ignored the importance of the acoustic character of their speech. CALLIOPE studies how vocal performances in parliament have influenced the course of political careers and political decision making in the 19th century. It shows how politicians’ voices helped to define the diverse identities they articulated. In viewing parliament through the lens of audibility, the project offers a new perspective on political representation by reframing how authority was embodied (through performances that were heard, rather than seen). It does so for the Second Chamber in Britain and France, and in dialogue with ‘colonial’ modes of speech in Kolkata and Algiers, which, we argue, exerted considerable influence on European vocal culture.
The project devises an innovative methodological approach to include the sound of the human voice in studies of the past that precede acoustic recording. Adapting methods developed in sound studies and combining them with the tools of political history, the project proposes a new way to analyse parliamentary reporting, while also drawing on a variety of sources that are rarely connected to the history of politics.
The main source material for the study comprise transcripts of parliamentary speech (official reports and renditions by journalists). However, the project also mobilizes educational, satirical and fictional sources to elucidate the convoluted processes that led to the cultivation, exertion, reception and evaluation of a voice ‘fit’ for nineteenth-century politics.
Summary
What did politicians sound like before they were on the radio and television? The fascination with politicians’ vocal characteristics and quirks is often connected to the rise of audio-visual media. But in the age of the printed press, political representatives also had to ‘speak well’ – without recourse to amplification.
Historians and linguists have provided sophisticated understandings of the discursive and aesthetic aspects of politicians’ language, but have largely ignored the importance of the acoustic character of their speech. CALLIOPE studies how vocal performances in parliament have influenced the course of political careers and political decision making in the 19th century. It shows how politicians’ voices helped to define the diverse identities they articulated. In viewing parliament through the lens of audibility, the project offers a new perspective on political representation by reframing how authority was embodied (through performances that were heard, rather than seen). It does so for the Second Chamber in Britain and France, and in dialogue with ‘colonial’ modes of speech in Kolkata and Algiers, which, we argue, exerted considerable influence on European vocal culture.
The project devises an innovative methodological approach to include the sound of the human voice in studies of the past that precede acoustic recording. Adapting methods developed in sound studies and combining them with the tools of political history, the project proposes a new way to analyse parliamentary reporting, while also drawing on a variety of sources that are rarely connected to the history of politics.
The main source material for the study comprise transcripts of parliamentary speech (official reports and renditions by journalists). However, the project also mobilizes educational, satirical and fictional sources to elucidate the convoluted processes that led to the cultivation, exertion, reception and evaluation of a voice ‘fit’ for nineteenth-century politics.
Max ERC Funding
1 499 905 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-03-01, End date: 2023-02-28
Project acronym CLIMASLOW
Project Slowing Down Climate Change: Combining Climate Law and Climate Science to Identify the Best Options to Reduce Emissions of Short-Lived Climate Forcers in Developing Countries
Researcher (PI) Kati Marjo Johanna Kulovesi
Host Institution (HI) ITA-SUOMEN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2015-STG
Summary The ClimaSlow project opens new interdisciplinary horizons to identify the best opportunities to enhance the global legal and regulatory framework for reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCFs), with particular attention to developing countries as projected key sources of future SLCF emissions. It proceeds from the assumption that strengthening the global legal and regulatory framework for SLCFs would bring important benefits in terms of slowing down climate change and reducing local air pollution. However, legal and regulatory options to step up action on SLCFs have not been studied comprehensively. Furthermore, the climate impacts of the various options are not adequately understood.
In contrast to traditional legal analysis that would focus one legal system or instrument, the project will study the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks comprehensively, considering the international, regional, national and transnational levels. It will seek to identify various options, both formal legal instruments and informal regulatory initiatives, to strengthen the global legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to SLCFs. In addition to providing information on best options to regulate SLCFs, this novel, comprehensive approach will help scholars to improve their understanding of the implications of ongoing changes in global legal landscape, including its presumed fragmentation and deformalisation.
Addressing an important gap in current knowledge, the project will combine analysis of the merits of the various legal and regulatory options with estimates of their climate change impacts on the basis of climate modeling. This way, it will be able to identify the alternatives that are the most promising both from the legal point of view and in terms of climate change mitigation potential. The project will generate information that is policy-relevant and context-specific but can simultaneously provide broader lessons and open new interdisciplinary horizons.
Summary
The ClimaSlow project opens new interdisciplinary horizons to identify the best opportunities to enhance the global legal and regulatory framework for reducing emissions of short-lived climate pollutants (SLCFs), with particular attention to developing countries as projected key sources of future SLCF emissions. It proceeds from the assumption that strengthening the global legal and regulatory framework for SLCFs would bring important benefits in terms of slowing down climate change and reducing local air pollution. However, legal and regulatory options to step up action on SLCFs have not been studied comprehensively. Furthermore, the climate impacts of the various options are not adequately understood.
In contrast to traditional legal analysis that would focus one legal system or instrument, the project will study the relevant legal and regulatory frameworks comprehensively, considering the international, regional, national and transnational levels. It will seek to identify various options, both formal legal instruments and informal regulatory initiatives, to strengthen the global legal and regulatory frameworks applicable to SLCFs. In addition to providing information on best options to regulate SLCFs, this novel, comprehensive approach will help scholars to improve their understanding of the implications of ongoing changes in global legal landscape, including its presumed fragmentation and deformalisation.
Addressing an important gap in current knowledge, the project will combine analysis of the merits of the various legal and regulatory options with estimates of their climate change impacts on the basis of climate modeling. This way, it will be able to identify the alternatives that are the most promising both from the legal point of view and in terms of climate change mitigation potential. The project will generate information that is policy-relevant and context-specific but can simultaneously provide broader lessons and open new interdisciplinary horizons.
Max ERC Funding
1 456 179 €
Duration
Start date: 2017-01-01, End date: 2021-12-31
Project acronym COSMOLOCALISM
Project Design Global, Manufacture Local: Assessing the Practices, Innovation, and Sustainability Potential of an Emerging Mode of Production
Researcher (PI) Vasileios KOSTAKIS
Host Institution (HI) TALLINNA TEHNIKAULIKOOL
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2018-STG
Summary COSMOLOCALISM will document, analyse, test, evaluate, and create awareness about an emerging mode of production, based on the confluence of the digital commons (e.g. open knowledge and design) with local manufacturing and automation technologies (from 3D printing and CNC machines to low-tech tools and crafts). This convergence could catalyse the transition to new inclusive and circular productive models, such as the “design global, manufacture local” (DGML) model.
DGML describes the processes through which design is developed as a global digital commons, whereas the manufacturing takes place locally, through shared infrastructures and with local biophysical conditions in mind. DGML seems to form economies of scope that promote sustainability and open innovation while celebrating new ways of cooperation. However, such claims rest on thin conceptual and empirical foundations.
COSMOLOCALISM is a multiphase, pilot-driven investigation of the DGML phenomenon that seeks to understand relevant organisational models, their evolution, and their broader political economy/ecology and policy implications. Through the lens of diverse case studies and participatory action research, the conditions under which the DGML model thrives will be explored.
COSMOLOCALISM has three concurrent streams: practices; innovation; and sustainability. First, DGML practices will be studied, patterns will be recognised and their form, function, cultural values, and governance structure will be determined. Second, the relevant open innovation ecosystems and their potential to reorient design and manufacturing practices will be examined. Third, selected DGML products will be evaluated from an environmental sustainability perspective, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods. The interdisciplinary nature of COSMOLOCALISM will explore new horizons to substantively improve our understanding of how we could do “more” and “better” with less.
Summary
COSMOLOCALISM will document, analyse, test, evaluate, and create awareness about an emerging mode of production, based on the confluence of the digital commons (e.g. open knowledge and design) with local manufacturing and automation technologies (from 3D printing and CNC machines to low-tech tools and crafts). This convergence could catalyse the transition to new inclusive and circular productive models, such as the “design global, manufacture local” (DGML) model.
DGML describes the processes through which design is developed as a global digital commons, whereas the manufacturing takes place locally, through shared infrastructures and with local biophysical conditions in mind. DGML seems to form economies of scope that promote sustainability and open innovation while celebrating new ways of cooperation. However, such claims rest on thin conceptual and empirical foundations.
COSMOLOCALISM is a multiphase, pilot-driven investigation of the DGML phenomenon that seeks to understand relevant organisational models, their evolution, and their broader political economy/ecology and policy implications. Through the lens of diverse case studies and participatory action research, the conditions under which the DGML model thrives will be explored.
COSMOLOCALISM has three concurrent streams: practices; innovation; and sustainability. First, DGML practices will be studied, patterns will be recognised and their form, function, cultural values, and governance structure will be determined. Second, the relevant open innovation ecosystems and their potential to reorient design and manufacturing practices will be examined. Third, selected DGML products will be evaluated from an environmental sustainability perspective, involving both qualitative and quantitative methods. The interdisciplinary nature of COSMOLOCALISM will explore new horizons to substantively improve our understanding of how we could do “more” and “better” with less.
Max ERC Funding
1 017 275 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym CROSSLOCATIONS
Project Crosslocations in the Mediterranean: rethinking the socio-cultural dynamics of relative positioning
Researcher (PI) Sarah Francesca Green
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH5, ERC-2015-AdG
Summary The Mediterranean, a key socio-cultural, economic and political crossroads, has shifted its relative position recently, with profound effects for relations between the peoples associated with its diverse parts. Crosslocations is a groundbreaking theoretical approach that goes beyond current borders research to analyse the significance of the changes in relations between places and peoples that this involves. It does this through explaining shifts in the relative positioning of the Mediterranean’s many locations – i.e. the changing values of where people are rather than who they are. Approaches focusing on people’s identities, statecraft or networks do not provide a way to research how the relative value of ‘being somewhere in particular’ is changing and diversifying.
The approach builds on the idea that in socio-cultural terms, location is a form of political, social, economic, and technical relative positioning, involving diverse scales that calibrate relative values (here called ‘locating regimes’). This means locations are both multiple and historically variable, so different types of location may overlap in the same geographical space, particularly in crossroads regions such as the Mediterranean. The dynamics between them alter relations between places, significantly affecting people’s daily lives, including their life chances, wellbeing, environmental, social and political conditions and status.
The project will first research the locating regimes crossing the Mediterranean region (border regimes, infrastructures; digital technologies; fiscal, financial and trading systems; environmental policies; and social and religious structures); then intensively ethnographically study the socio-cultural dynamics of relative positioning that these regimes generate in selected parts of the Mediterranean region. Through explaining the dynamics of relative location, Crosslocations will transform our understanding of trans-local, socio-cultural relations and separations.
Summary
The Mediterranean, a key socio-cultural, economic and political crossroads, has shifted its relative position recently, with profound effects for relations between the peoples associated with its diverse parts. Crosslocations is a groundbreaking theoretical approach that goes beyond current borders research to analyse the significance of the changes in relations between places and peoples that this involves. It does this through explaining shifts in the relative positioning of the Mediterranean’s many locations – i.e. the changing values of where people are rather than who they are. Approaches focusing on people’s identities, statecraft or networks do not provide a way to research how the relative value of ‘being somewhere in particular’ is changing and diversifying.
The approach builds on the idea that in socio-cultural terms, location is a form of political, social, economic, and technical relative positioning, involving diverse scales that calibrate relative values (here called ‘locating regimes’). This means locations are both multiple and historically variable, so different types of location may overlap in the same geographical space, particularly in crossroads regions such as the Mediterranean. The dynamics between them alter relations between places, significantly affecting people’s daily lives, including their life chances, wellbeing, environmental, social and political conditions and status.
The project will first research the locating regimes crossing the Mediterranean region (border regimes, infrastructures; digital technologies; fiscal, financial and trading systems; environmental policies; and social and religious structures); then intensively ethnographically study the socio-cultural dynamics of relative positioning that these regimes generate in selected parts of the Mediterranean region. Through explaining the dynamics of relative location, Crosslocations will transform our understanding of trans-local, socio-cultural relations and separations.
Max ERC Funding
2 433 234 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym DOMESTICATION
Project Domestication in Action - Tracing Archaeological Markers of Human-Animal Interaction
Researcher (PI) Anna-Kaisa SALMI
Host Institution (HI) OULUN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH6, ERC-2017-STG
Summary The project will create new methodology for identification and interpretation of animal domestication, with a case study pertaining to reindeer domestication among the indigenous Sámi in northern Fennoscandia. Identification of early animal domestication is complicated due to the limited human control over the animals’ life cycles in early stages of domestication, leading to difficulties in interpreting morphological and genetic data, as well as in using traditional concepts and definitions of domestication. These problems are especially pressing in the study of reindeer domestication, characterized by very limited human control over animals. However, understanding reindeer domestication is important to local communities as well as to the scientific community due to central role of human-reindeer relation as a carrier of culture and identity among many peoples, including Sámi of northern Fennoscandia.
As a novel approach, we propose a focus on interactional events between humans and animals as indications of domestication taking place. We will create methods aimed at identifying interactional events such as draught use and feeding, between reindeer and humans. The methodological package includes physical activity reconstruction through entheseal changes, pathological lesions and bone cross-sections, and analysis of stable isotopes as indicator of animal diet. These methods will then be applied for archaeological reindeer bone finds and the results will be checked against aDNA data to examine changing human-animal relationships among the Sámi. The project has a potential to break new ground in understanding animal domestication as human-animal interaction, a viewpoint pivotal in today’s human-animal studies. Moreover, the project has potential of methodological breakthroughs and creation of transferable methodology. The results will be relevant to local communities and researchers dealing with domestication, human-animal studies and colonial histories.
Summary
The project will create new methodology for identification and interpretation of animal domestication, with a case study pertaining to reindeer domestication among the indigenous Sámi in northern Fennoscandia. Identification of early animal domestication is complicated due to the limited human control over the animals’ life cycles in early stages of domestication, leading to difficulties in interpreting morphological and genetic data, as well as in using traditional concepts and definitions of domestication. These problems are especially pressing in the study of reindeer domestication, characterized by very limited human control over animals. However, understanding reindeer domestication is important to local communities as well as to the scientific community due to central role of human-reindeer relation as a carrier of culture and identity among many peoples, including Sámi of northern Fennoscandia.
As a novel approach, we propose a focus on interactional events between humans and animals as indications of domestication taking place. We will create methods aimed at identifying interactional events such as draught use and feeding, between reindeer and humans. The methodological package includes physical activity reconstruction through entheseal changes, pathological lesions and bone cross-sections, and analysis of stable isotopes as indicator of animal diet. These methods will then be applied for archaeological reindeer bone finds and the results will be checked against aDNA data to examine changing human-animal relationships among the Sámi. The project has a potential to break new ground in understanding animal domestication as human-animal interaction, a viewpoint pivotal in today’s human-animal studies. Moreover, the project has potential of methodological breakthroughs and creation of transferable methodology. The results will be relevant to local communities and researchers dealing with domestication, human-animal studies and colonial histories.
Max ERC Funding
1 490 915 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-02-01, End date: 2023-01-31
Project acronym EarlyDev
Project Brain networks for processing social signals of emotions: early development and the emergence of individual differences
Researcher (PI) Jukka Matias Leppänen
Host Institution (HI) TAMPEREEN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2011-StG_20101124
Summary Recent research has shown that genetic variations in central serotonin function are associated with biases in emotional information processing (heightened attention to signals of negative emotion) and that these biases contribute significantly to vulnerability to affective disorders. Here, we propose to examine a novel hypothesis that the biases in attention to emotional cues are ontogenetically primary, arise very early in development, and modulate an individual’s interaction with the environment during development. The four specific aims of the project are to 1) test the hypothesis that developmental processes resulting in increased functional connectivity of visual and emotion/attention-related neural systems (i.e., increased phase-synchrony of oscillatory activity) from 5 to 7 months of age are associated with the emergence of an overt attentional bias towards affectively salient facial expressions at 7 months of age, 2) use eye-tracking to ascertain that the attentional bias in 7-month-old infants reflects sensitivity to the emotional signal value of facial expressions instead of correlated non-emotional features, 3) test the hypothesis that increased serotonergic tone early in life (through genetic polymorphisms or exposure to serotonin enhancing drugs) is associated with reduced control of attention to affectively salient facial expressions and reduced temperamental emotion-regulation at 7, 24 and 48 months of age, and 4) examine the plasticity of the attentional bias towards emotional facial expressions in infancy, particularly whether the bias can be overridden by using positive reinforcers. The proposed studies will be the first to explicate the neural bases and nature of early-emerging cognitive deficits and biases that pose a risk for emotional dysfunction. As such, the results will be very important for developing intervention methods that benefit of the plasticity of the developing brain and skill formation to support healthy development.
Summary
Recent research has shown that genetic variations in central serotonin function are associated with biases in emotional information processing (heightened attention to signals of negative emotion) and that these biases contribute significantly to vulnerability to affective disorders. Here, we propose to examine a novel hypothesis that the biases in attention to emotional cues are ontogenetically primary, arise very early in development, and modulate an individual’s interaction with the environment during development. The four specific aims of the project are to 1) test the hypothesis that developmental processes resulting in increased functional connectivity of visual and emotion/attention-related neural systems (i.e., increased phase-synchrony of oscillatory activity) from 5 to 7 months of age are associated with the emergence of an overt attentional bias towards affectively salient facial expressions at 7 months of age, 2) use eye-tracking to ascertain that the attentional bias in 7-month-old infants reflects sensitivity to the emotional signal value of facial expressions instead of correlated non-emotional features, 3) test the hypothesis that increased serotonergic tone early in life (through genetic polymorphisms or exposure to serotonin enhancing drugs) is associated with reduced control of attention to affectively salient facial expressions and reduced temperamental emotion-regulation at 7, 24 and 48 months of age, and 4) examine the plasticity of the attentional bias towards emotional facial expressions in infancy, particularly whether the bias can be overridden by using positive reinforcers. The proposed studies will be the first to explicate the neural bases and nature of early-emerging cognitive deficits and biases that pose a risk for emotional dysfunction. As such, the results will be very important for developing intervention methods that benefit of the plasticity of the developing brain and skill formation to support healthy development.
Max ERC Funding
1 397 351 €
Duration
Start date: 2012-02-01, End date: 2017-01-31
Project acronym EpComp
Project Competence and Success in Epistemology and Beyond
Researcher (PI) Maria LASONEN-AARNIO
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2017-STG
Summary This project formulates and defends a novel approach in epistemology, demonstrating how it solves a range of key problems in the field. New frontiers of research are opened up by applying the core lessons learnt in epistemology to the study of practical reason and ethics.
My dual evaluations approach hypothesizes that for a wide range of key evaluative notions, competence is neither necessary nor sufficient for success: there are both cases of incompetent success and of competent failure. For instance, a subject can know without exercising knowledge-conducive competence, and vice versa – and similarly for justified or rational belief. The project demonstrates how this recognition solves a cluster of key problems in the field relating to so-called higher-order evidence, and how it allows accommodating internalist evaluations in more externalist frameworks, thus bridging perhaps the most significant divide in epistemology.
What will emerge is a thorough re-structuring of the epistemological landscape. The project generalizes some of the lessons learnt to the study of structural requirements of rationality. Finally, the approach is deployed to investigate the relationship between morally right and morally worthy action. The main objectives of the project are:
(O1) To develop the theoretical foundations of the dual evaluations approach.
(O2) To put forth a novel view in epistemology that demonstrates how recognizing both cases of competent failure and incompetent success solves highly current problems and puzzles, reconciling two opposing theoretical starting points.
(O3) To investigate and ultimately reject as theoretically important the notion of structural rationality, offering an alternative, competence-based explanation of verdicts that seem to show the need for such a notion.
(O4) To explore generalizations of the results of the previous parts of the project to the practical and moral domains.
Summary
This project formulates and defends a novel approach in epistemology, demonstrating how it solves a range of key problems in the field. New frontiers of research are opened up by applying the core lessons learnt in epistemology to the study of practical reason and ethics.
My dual evaluations approach hypothesizes that for a wide range of key evaluative notions, competence is neither necessary nor sufficient for success: there are both cases of incompetent success and of competent failure. For instance, a subject can know without exercising knowledge-conducive competence, and vice versa – and similarly for justified or rational belief. The project demonstrates how this recognition solves a cluster of key problems in the field relating to so-called higher-order evidence, and how it allows accommodating internalist evaluations in more externalist frameworks, thus bridging perhaps the most significant divide in epistemology.
What will emerge is a thorough re-structuring of the epistemological landscape. The project generalizes some of the lessons learnt to the study of structural requirements of rationality. Finally, the approach is deployed to investigate the relationship between morally right and morally worthy action. The main objectives of the project are:
(O1) To develop the theoretical foundations of the dual evaluations approach.
(O2) To put forth a novel view in epistemology that demonstrates how recognizing both cases of competent failure and incompetent success solves highly current problems and puzzles, reconciling two opposing theoretical starting points.
(O3) To investigate and ultimately reject as theoretically important the notion of structural rationality, offering an alternative, competence-based explanation of verdicts that seem to show the need for such a notion.
(O4) To explore generalizations of the results of the previous parts of the project to the practical and moral domains.
Max ERC Funding
1 470 665 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-01-01, End date: 2022-12-31
Project acronym ERERE
Project Between Restoration and Revolution, National Constitutions and Global Law: an Alternative View on the European Century 1815-1914
Researcher (PI) Bo Stråth
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH2, ERC-2008-AdG
Summary The point of departure of this project is that a good part of the present deficit of legitimacy of European institutions emerges from a deeply ahistoric view of Europe s past. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a more realistic history that rejects any teleological understanding of Europe as a self-propelling project on steady march towards a predetermined goal. The fragility of European peace and progress needs to be highlighted. The theoretical foundation of Europe in teleological modernisation and globalisation theories has lead to a-historical understandings of Europe s past that disturb our ability to plan for its future. Our realistic outline of Europe s past focuses on the century 1815-1914, which was the pre-war historical ground on which the peace of 1945 and our present conception of Europe were built. It testifies at least as much to conflict and fragility as to progress. The century is traversed by a series of tensions in the political, cultural, social, economic and legal fields and struggles between the protagonists of different conceptions of European modernity. The legal and political basis for a new European order established in the Vienna Treaty, called the European concert, opened an era that lasted until 1914 in which wars in Europe decreased, whereas the number of civil wars increased and the Revolution came to no end. The tensions were articulated in different geopolitical strategies, constitutional conceptions, prescriptions for economic efficiency and claims for social protection, and alternating views of the meaning of Europe. In one way or the other, they all dealt with the interactive dynamics between politics and law, nationally as well as internationally. These interactive dynamics were also visible in the permanent movement between search for and expectations of stability and experiences of fragility. The aim is to explore the tensions in deep detail and on that basis build an alternative historical view on Europe.
Summary
The point of departure of this project is that a good part of the present deficit of legitimacy of European institutions emerges from a deeply ahistoric view of Europe s past. Consequently, there is an urgent need for a more realistic history that rejects any teleological understanding of Europe as a self-propelling project on steady march towards a predetermined goal. The fragility of European peace and progress needs to be highlighted. The theoretical foundation of Europe in teleological modernisation and globalisation theories has lead to a-historical understandings of Europe s past that disturb our ability to plan for its future. Our realistic outline of Europe s past focuses on the century 1815-1914, which was the pre-war historical ground on which the peace of 1945 and our present conception of Europe were built. It testifies at least as much to conflict and fragility as to progress. The century is traversed by a series of tensions in the political, cultural, social, economic and legal fields and struggles between the protagonists of different conceptions of European modernity. The legal and political basis for a new European order established in the Vienna Treaty, called the European concert, opened an era that lasted until 1914 in which wars in Europe decreased, whereas the number of civil wars increased and the Revolution came to no end. The tensions were articulated in different geopolitical strategies, constitutional conceptions, prescriptions for economic efficiency and claims for social protection, and alternating views of the meaning of Europe. In one way or the other, they all dealt with the interactive dynamics between politics and law, nationally as well as internationally. These interactive dynamics were also visible in the permanent movement between search for and expectations of stability and experiences of fragility. The aim is to explore the tensions in deep detail and on that basis build an alternative historical view on Europe.
Max ERC Funding
2 500 000 €
Duration
Start date: 2009-09-01, End date: 2014-08-31
Project acronym ETI
Project Epistemic Transitions in Islamic Philosophy, Theology and Science: From the 12th to the 19th Century
Researcher (PI) Jari Pekka Kaukua
Host Institution (HI) JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH5, ERC-2015-CoG
Summary Not very long ago, it was still common to hold that little of interest took place in Islamic philosophy, theology and science after the death of the Peripatetic commentator Averroes in 1198. Recent research has produced increasing evidence against this view, and experts now commonly agree that texts from the so-called post-classical period merit serious analysis. That evidence, however, is still fragmentary, and we lack a clear understanding of the large scale and long run development in the various fields of Islamic intellectual culture after the twelfth century.
This project will investigate debates concerning the nature and methods of knowledge in four of the most ambitious strands of Islamic theoretical thought, that is, philosophy, theology, natural science, and philosophically inclined Sufism. Its temporal scope extends from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the colonial era, and it focuses on foundational epistemological questions (how knowledge is defined, what criteria are used to distinguish it from less secure epistemic attitudes, what methods are identified as valid in the acquisition of knowledge) as well as questions concerning knowledge as the goal of our existence (in particular, whether perceptual experience is inherently valuable).
Our study of the four strands is based on the hypothesis that the post-classical period is witness to a sophisticated discussion of knowledge, in which epistemic realism, intuitionism, phenomenalism, and subjectivism are pitted against each other in a nuanced manner. Hence, the project will result in a well-founded reassessment of the common view according to which post-classical Islamic intellectual culture is authoritarian and stuck to an epistemic paradigm that stifles insight and creativity. Thereby it will provide new ingredients for projects of endogenous reform and reorientation in Islam, and corroborate the view that our future histories of philosophy should incorporate the Islamic tradition.
Summary
Not very long ago, it was still common to hold that little of interest took place in Islamic philosophy, theology and science after the death of the Peripatetic commentator Averroes in 1198. Recent research has produced increasing evidence against this view, and experts now commonly agree that texts from the so-called post-classical period merit serious analysis. That evidence, however, is still fragmentary, and we lack a clear understanding of the large scale and long run development in the various fields of Islamic intellectual culture after the twelfth century.
This project will investigate debates concerning the nature and methods of knowledge in four of the most ambitious strands of Islamic theoretical thought, that is, philosophy, theology, natural science, and philosophically inclined Sufism. Its temporal scope extends from the end of the twelfth century to the beginning of the colonial era, and it focuses on foundational epistemological questions (how knowledge is defined, what criteria are used to distinguish it from less secure epistemic attitudes, what methods are identified as valid in the acquisition of knowledge) as well as questions concerning knowledge as the goal of our existence (in particular, whether perceptual experience is inherently valuable).
Our study of the four strands is based on the hypothesis that the post-classical period is witness to a sophisticated discussion of knowledge, in which epistemic realism, intuitionism, phenomenalism, and subjectivism are pitted against each other in a nuanced manner. Hence, the project will result in a well-founded reassessment of the common view according to which post-classical Islamic intellectual culture is authoritarian and stuck to an epistemic paradigm that stifles insight and creativity. Thereby it will provide new ingredients for projects of endogenous reform and reorientation in Islam, and corroborate the view that our future histories of philosophy should incorporate the Islamic tradition.
Max ERC Funding
1 526 429 €
Duration
Start date: 2016-09-01, End date: 2021-08-31
Project acronym EUGenDem
Project Gender, party politics and democracy in Europe: A study of European Parliament's party groups
Researcher (PI) Johanna KANTOLA
Host Institution (HI) TAMPEREEN KORKEAKOULUSAATIO SR
Call Details Consolidator Grant (CoG), SH2, ERC-2017-COG
Summary Given the crucial importance of European Parliament’s party groups to democratic representation in the European Union, it is surprising that there is limited empirical and theoretical understanding that relates to how they conceive of gender, gender hierarchies and gendered relations, or how they seek to address gender inequalities. Nor do we know what the conditions are for increasing a gender equal democracy in the EU in the face of the current political context shaped by political crises. This project aims to provide a systematic analysis of the gendered policies and practices of European party politics. The research comprises a comparative study of the eight European Parliament (EP) party groups and generates empirical findings about the significance of gender in the current party political transformations in Europe.
Further potential lies in the key methodological innovation whereby the proposed project links informal institutions and discourses to affects and emotions, generating research designs with which the persistence of gender inequalities can be analysed more thoroughly than current gender and politics research allows. More nuanced conceptualizations, and theories about inclusive representation, gender justice and democracy at the transnational level, are a likely consequence of adopting an innovative methodological approach where empirical findings inform the theoretical level. Therefore, the project may have a high societal impact as it speaks directly to the current political crises in Europe, and provides an understanding of their gendered underpinnings.
Thus, the key ambition of this research project is: based on a thorough empirical understanding of gender and party politics at the European Parliament to build novel methodologies, concepts and theories about inclusive representation, gender justice and democracy.
Summary
Given the crucial importance of European Parliament’s party groups to democratic representation in the European Union, it is surprising that there is limited empirical and theoretical understanding that relates to how they conceive of gender, gender hierarchies and gendered relations, or how they seek to address gender inequalities. Nor do we know what the conditions are for increasing a gender equal democracy in the EU in the face of the current political context shaped by political crises. This project aims to provide a systematic analysis of the gendered policies and practices of European party politics. The research comprises a comparative study of the eight European Parliament (EP) party groups and generates empirical findings about the significance of gender in the current party political transformations in Europe.
Further potential lies in the key methodological innovation whereby the proposed project links informal institutions and discourses to affects and emotions, generating research designs with which the persistence of gender inequalities can be analysed more thoroughly than current gender and politics research allows. More nuanced conceptualizations, and theories about inclusive representation, gender justice and democracy at the transnational level, are a likely consequence of adopting an innovative methodological approach where empirical findings inform the theoretical level. Therefore, the project may have a high societal impact as it speaks directly to the current political crises in Europe, and provides an understanding of their gendered underpinnings.
Thus, the key ambition of this research project is: based on a thorough empirical understanding of gender and party politics at the European Parliament to build novel methodologies, concepts and theories about inclusive representation, gender justice and democracy.
Max ERC Funding
1 976 482 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-08-01, End date: 2023-07-31
Project acronym EUROHERIT
Project Legitimation of European cultural heritage and the dynamics of identity politics in the EU
Researcher (PI) Tuuli Kaarina Lähdesmäki
Host Institution (HI) JYVASKYLAN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH5, ERC-2014-STG
Summary The problematic of transnational cultural heritage has become topical in a new way in Europe with the utilization of the idea of heritage for political purposes in the EU policy. Since the turn of the century, the EU has launched or jointly administered several initiatives focusing on fostering the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The heritage initiatives are the EU’s ‘technologies of power’ aiming to legitimate and justify certain political ideas and ideologies, such as European-wide identity politics and the cultural integration in Europe. However, the politics, discourses, and practices of heritage—and of transnational heritage in particular—are often intertwined with contentions over its symbolical and factual ownership, meanings, and uses. The project investigates the EU as a new heritage agent and its heritage politics as an attempt to create a new trans-European heritage regime in Europe: How does the EU aim to create common European cultural heritage in a politically shaking and culturally diversified Europe, and what kind of explicit and implicit politics are included in its aims? The project will focus on the legitimation processes of European cultural heritage at different territorial levels and the power relations formed in the processes between diverse agencies. The academia still lacks a comparative empirical investigation on the politics and practices of trans-European cultural heritage and the theoretical discussion on the role of the EU in them. The project aims to respond to this lack with a broad comparative empirical research including cases from various parts of Europe, penetrating different territorial scales (local, regional, national, and the EU), and theorizing cultural heritage from a multisectional perspective (stressing its concurrent use in diverse societal domains and discourses). The project participates in a critical discussion on the current identity and integration politics and policies in the EU and Europe.
Summary
The problematic of transnational cultural heritage has become topical in a new way in Europe with the utilization of the idea of heritage for political purposes in the EU policy. Since the turn of the century, the EU has launched or jointly administered several initiatives focusing on fostering the idea of a common European cultural heritage. The heritage initiatives are the EU’s ‘technologies of power’ aiming to legitimate and justify certain political ideas and ideologies, such as European-wide identity politics and the cultural integration in Europe. However, the politics, discourses, and practices of heritage—and of transnational heritage in particular—are often intertwined with contentions over its symbolical and factual ownership, meanings, and uses. The project investigates the EU as a new heritage agent and its heritage politics as an attempt to create a new trans-European heritage regime in Europe: How does the EU aim to create common European cultural heritage in a politically shaking and culturally diversified Europe, and what kind of explicit and implicit politics are included in its aims? The project will focus on the legitimation processes of European cultural heritage at different territorial levels and the power relations formed in the processes between diverse agencies. The academia still lacks a comparative empirical investigation on the politics and practices of trans-European cultural heritage and the theoretical discussion on the role of the EU in them. The project aims to respond to this lack with a broad comparative empirical research including cases from various parts of Europe, penetrating different territorial scales (local, regional, national, and the EU), and theorizing cultural heritage from a multisectional perspective (stressing its concurrent use in diverse societal domains and discourses). The project participates in a critical discussion on the current identity and integration politics and policies in the EU and Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 339 755 €
Duration
Start date: 2015-09-01, End date: 2020-08-31
Project acronym FOUNDLAW
Project Reinventing the Foundations
of European Legal Culture 1934-1964
Researcher (PI) Kaius Tapani Tuori
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH2, ERC-2012-StG_20111124
Summary It is often claimed in the rights and culture debate that certain rights are a reflection of a European culture and tradition and thus not universal. What this study demonstrates is that even in Europe the rights tradition is a conscious construction by a group of legal scholars reacting to contemporary events.
This study is about a group of innovators who are forced to reinvent themselves and their science abroad after being exiled by Nazi Germany. This reinvention meant that they had to first rethink all that they had previously done and then to address a new audience in a new language, simultaneously trying to make sense of the catastrophe. In response, they created a theory a common European legal culture, founded on ideals of the rule of law. A reaction to the nationalistic totalitarian regimes, they sought to show a great tradition based on liberty and justice.
What this study offers is a twist, in that the reinvention had a second, even more influential life after the war. What the anti-totalitarian narrative formed by the exiles offered to the academic community was an explanation and a new self-understanding of law and legal science as a bulwark against dictatorship, enabling them to respond to the challenge of socialism.
Combining archival research, bibliometrical studies and social analysis, the project will study the creation of the rights theory through the intellectual histories of five key figures. Studying correspondence, lecture notes, and published materials on how the idea of a common European legal past was formulated, discussed and disseminated, the project contests the claims of current research that the rights tradition was an accepted historical fact. The starting point of the study, 1934, is the first response to the Nazi takeover and the expelling of civil servants of Jewish ancestry, while the end point, 1964, includes the reaction to the Berlin Wall and the consolidation of the hostilities between East and West in Europe.
Summary
It is often claimed in the rights and culture debate that certain rights are a reflection of a European culture and tradition and thus not universal. What this study demonstrates is that even in Europe the rights tradition is a conscious construction by a group of legal scholars reacting to contemporary events.
This study is about a group of innovators who are forced to reinvent themselves and their science abroad after being exiled by Nazi Germany. This reinvention meant that they had to first rethink all that they had previously done and then to address a new audience in a new language, simultaneously trying to make sense of the catastrophe. In response, they created a theory a common European legal culture, founded on ideals of the rule of law. A reaction to the nationalistic totalitarian regimes, they sought to show a great tradition based on liberty and justice.
What this study offers is a twist, in that the reinvention had a second, even more influential life after the war. What the anti-totalitarian narrative formed by the exiles offered to the academic community was an explanation and a new self-understanding of law and legal science as a bulwark against dictatorship, enabling them to respond to the challenge of socialism.
Combining archival research, bibliometrical studies and social analysis, the project will study the creation of the rights theory through the intellectual histories of five key figures. Studying correspondence, lecture notes, and published materials on how the idea of a common European legal past was formulated, discussed and disseminated, the project contests the claims of current research that the rights tradition was an accepted historical fact. The starting point of the study, 1934, is the first response to the Nazi takeover and the expelling of civil servants of Jewish ancestry, while the end point, 1964, includes the reaction to the Berlin Wall and the consolidation of the hostilities between East and West in Europe.
Max ERC Funding
1 476 429 €
Duration
Start date: 2013-03-01, End date: 2018-02-28
Project acronym GODELIANA
Project The Gödel Enigma: Unveiling a Hidden Logical Heritage
Researcher (PI) Jan VON PLATO
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Advanced Grant (AdG), SH4, ERC-2017-ADG
Summary Research in logic and foundations of mathematics received an enormous impact through the incompleteness theorems that Kurt Gödel published in 1931. They are among the most iconic scientific achievements of the 20th century. These results led to the development of true formal systems and to the notions of formal languages and algorithmic computability that are connected to such names as Alonzo Church and Alan Turing. The said notions are the direct basis on which the first programming languages and computers were built two decades later. Thus, the present information society owes a - well hidden - debt to the theoretically oriented foundational research that sprung off from Gödel's results.
Strangely enough, there are several thousand pages of notes by this foremost figure of logic that have remained almost completely untouched. Such a situation would be unthinkable in many other fields. Say, with modern physics, every effort would have been made if Einstein - even Gödel's colleague and friend at the Princeton Institute - had left behind such a patrimony!
With Gödel, the difficulty lies in part in the fact that the work is written down in an obsolete, forgotten old German stenographic script called Gabelsberger, a true enigma for those interested in the contents. A second difficulty is the intrinsic logical complexity of the work.
The central aim of the project is to make this work available to future generations of logicians and philosophers. The principal investigator is in a unique position of being able to read the Gabelsberger notes and to interpret their logical content: What they mean in a historical-foundational context, what their significance is for today's research problems in logic, and how they change the view of Gödel as one of the most original thinkers of a century.
Summary
Research in logic and foundations of mathematics received an enormous impact through the incompleteness theorems that Kurt Gödel published in 1931. They are among the most iconic scientific achievements of the 20th century. These results led to the development of true formal systems and to the notions of formal languages and algorithmic computability that are connected to such names as Alonzo Church and Alan Turing. The said notions are the direct basis on which the first programming languages and computers were built two decades later. Thus, the present information society owes a - well hidden - debt to the theoretically oriented foundational research that sprung off from Gödel's results.
Strangely enough, there are several thousand pages of notes by this foremost figure of logic that have remained almost completely untouched. Such a situation would be unthinkable in many other fields. Say, with modern physics, every effort would have been made if Einstein - even Gödel's colleague and friend at the Princeton Institute - had left behind such a patrimony!
With Gödel, the difficulty lies in part in the fact that the work is written down in an obsolete, forgotten old German stenographic script called Gabelsberger, a true enigma for those interested in the contents. A second difficulty is the intrinsic logical complexity of the work.
The central aim of the project is to make this work available to future generations of logicians and philosophers. The principal investigator is in a unique position of being able to read the Gabelsberger notes and to interpret their logical content: What they mean in a historical-foundational context, what their significance is for today's research problems in logic, and how they change the view of Gödel as one of the most original thinkers of a century.
Max ERC Funding
2 132 993 €
Duration
Start date: 2018-09-01, End date: 2023-08-31
Project acronym GramAdapt
Project Linguistic Adaptation: Typological and Sociolinguistic Perspectives to Language Variation
Researcher (PI) Kaius Tatu-Kustaa SINNEMÄKI
Host Institution (HI) HELSINGIN YLIOPISTO
Call Details Starting Grant (StG), SH4, ERC-2018-STG
Summary The GramAdapt project researches linguistic adaptation by developing a synthesis of typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. This novel framework enables combining typological data with rich sociolinguistic data into the same model and evaluating their relationship statistically. The main research question is: Can I prove with typological data that language structure adapts to sociolinguistic context?
The project has 4 objectives:
- to develop a methodological approach that makes it possible to combine typological and sociolinguistic data into the same model and to statistically research their relationship,
- to understand the degree and nature of linguistic adaptation in the world's languages and whether it is independent of language-internal structural tendencies,
- to analyze 3-4 sociolinguistic factors that are likely to drive changes in linguistic structures (language contact vs. isolation, multilingualism, community size, and prestige) via a sample 150 languages,
- to analyze 3-4 broad linguistic categories that are prone to respond to changes in sociolinguistic environment (case, gender, and number) in the same set of 150 languages to support assessing linguistic adaptations.
Three key methodological innovations will be created: (i) language structures will be analyzed typologically from the perspective of how difficult they are for adult second language learners, (ii) sociolinguistic environments will be analyzed across societies via using the idea of comparative concepts from typology, (iii) a new sampling strategy will be developed to draw conclusions from both large families and language isolates. This framework enables researching linguistic adaptations typologically in a principled way and it has the potential to forge a deeper relationship between typology and sociolinguistics and thus open new domains of inquiry. The results will create a strong argument for treating language as part of the general adaptive human behavior.
Summary
The GramAdapt project researches linguistic adaptation by developing a synthesis of typological and sociolinguistic approaches to language variation. This novel framework enables combining typological data with rich sociolinguistic data into the same model and evaluating their relationship statistically. The main research question is: Can I prove with typological data that language structure adapts to sociolinguistic context?
The project has 4 objectives:
- to develop a methodological approach that makes it possible to combine typological and sociolinguistic data into the same model and to statistically research their relationship,
- to understand the degree and nature of linguistic adaptation in the world's languages and whether it is independent of language-internal structural tendencies,
- to analyze 3-4 sociolinguistic factors that are likely to drive changes in linguistic structures (language contact vs. isolation, multilingualism, community size, and prestige) via a sample 150 languages,
- to analyze 3-4 broad linguistic categories that are prone to respond to changes in sociolinguistic environment (case, gender, and number) in the same set of 150 languages to support assessing linguistic adaptations.
Three key methodological innovations will be created: (i) language structures will be analyzed typologically from the perspective of how difficult they are for adult second language learners, (ii) sociolinguistic environments will be analyzed across societies via using the idea of comparative concepts from typology, (iii) a new sampling strategy will be developed to draw conclusions from both large families and language isolates. This framework enables researching linguistic adaptations typologically in a principled way and it has the potential to forge a deeper relationship between typology and sociolinguistics and thus open new domains of inquiry. The results will create a strong argument for treating language as part of the general adaptive human behavior.
Max ERC Funding
1 491 493 €
Duration
Start date: 2019-01-01, End date: 2023-12-31
