Six collaborative research projects have been selected for funding in the second call for research proposals launched by CIVICA – The European University of Social Sciences. The call aimed to jumpstart innovative research and create new ties between CIVICA’s member universities. Faculty and postdoctoral researchers from the alliance were encouraged to team up and submit new research ideas aligned with, but not necessarily limited to, CIVICA’s focus areas: societal and environmental crises, democracy, Europe, and data science.
The seed funding from CIVICA will enable researchers to scale up their projects and apply for larger research grants. The alliance awarded the six winning projects approx. €100,000 in total funding, financed from the Erasmus+ programme of the European Union, and partners’ own resources. One of the selection criteria was a project’s potential to develop into fully-fledged research and be eligible for larger grants. The PDT also considered aspects like innovation, coherence, and contribution to CIVICA’s efforts towards integrated research.
The winning project in which Prof. Pető is co-lead
- Protecting Academics at Risk: A Survey of European and EU Practice (PROAC)
Lead institutions: CEU, LSE, SNSPA
Focus area: Democracy in the 21st Century
We are happy that CIVICA recognised the political importance and academic relevance of PROAC - a project which aims to investigate how scholars who have been forced into exile by authoritarian regimes within and outside Europe are currently being integrated in the EU. The research team is led by three PIs from Gender Studies, Political Science, and History. We hope to conduct research in three pilot countries ranging from older to newer EU members to a non-EU member state (Hungary, Romania, and the UK), as well as EU-level organisations. Informed by historical and comparative research into academic integration, we want to develop in-depth interviews with key position holders to gain a granular and multi-perspectival understanding of the challenges involved, creative solutions found, and dilemmas encountered when addressing the problem of expelled academics today. —project co-leads: Andrea Pető, Professor in the Department of Gender Studies, CEU; Dina Gusejnova, Assistant Professor in International History, LSE; Alina Dragolea, Lecturer at the Faculty of Political Science, SNSPA.