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Dear <<First Name>>,
 
With this second edition of ISSUES e-magazine, we presenting a new series of well-qualified researchers in the EU and their research background. Just as with the researchers showcased in the January 2021 edition, the six researchers covered here were selected because they are well-suited for tackling current European challenges.

By reading further, we invite you to learn more about who these researchers are, and to engage with their thoughts on interesting and relevant issues, such as: the societal impact of the COVID 19 - pandemic, digitisation of arts and cultural heritage in the face of the current challenges, and learning from the past for the future - may it be through the recent history of crises in the Balkans (with a focus on conspiracy theories), through intellectual history, or taking a look on gendered power relations across social and economic spheres. A more “internal view” on how the voice of SSH research community is being heard in the EU is also part of this edition.
 
In addition, we would like to make you aware that if you are planning to apply for funding in Cluster 2 of the Horizon Europe Programme, these researchers might be excellent potential partners for future consortia. The range of participating countries is equally diverse as in the first round: Croatia, Cyprus, Estonia, Hungary, Poland and Slovenia.

We hope you enjoy reading each of these exciting profiles!
 
PS: If you haven´t read the first edition, and would like to do so now, you can find the first six portraits on our website!
Liisi Keedus
More
Marinos Ioannides
More
Nebojša Blanuša
More
Izabela Grabowska
More
Marta Verginella
More
Zsolt Demetrovics
More

Liisi Keedus

 

Institution

Tallinn University, Estonia
School of Humanities, Political philosophy and intellectual history

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 

  • Destination 1: Innovative Research on Democracy and Governance
  • Destination 2: Innovative Research on the European Cultural Heritage and the Cultural and Creative Industries
  • Destination 3: Innovative Research on Social and Economic Transformations - Calls on migration


Previous European research projects

 

"The past is never dead. It's not even past." William Faulkner
                            
Intellectual history, a niche discipline when it emerged in the late 1960s-early 1970s, has today established itself globally as an exciting approach, complementing and competing with the more familiar social and political histories. It offers an alternative to materialist accounts of the past, emphasizing that human, social and political realities - in the past as well as in the present - are to a significant extent shaped and reshaped by our ideas, understanding, and talking about it. Ideas are not timeless and abstract, but human actions, always situated and engaged in the unceasing effort to make and re-make the human world. "Pen is a mighty sword", is one our dictums, just as true today, as it has been in the past.
 
Our project, "Between the Times: Embattled Temporalities and Political Imagination in Interwar Europe" explores the ways in which experiences of time and historicity have changed in the past century, and in this process, given birth to novel political languages - and new politics. For example, some of the most influential twentieth century political, social and economic agendas were inseparable from and founded on a widely shared sense of history as progress. Today, when the ecological, financial and social crises have shattered this faith, the pursuits of liberalism, emancipation, globalization and even Europeanisation, have similarly been undermined. So, we ask - and intellectual history is always by definition political, as well as normatively philosophical - what are and can be the alternative historicities for reframing our political horizons?
 
Equally importantly, while European intellectual history has until recently meant almost exclusively the history of Western European ideas, we highlight the legacies and richness of the hitherto relatively unexplored Eastern and Central European political thought. Its inclusion into the more conventional canon of European ideas, both in its agreements and disagreements with "Western" political thought, would be one of the starting points in gaining better understanding of contemporary ideological frictions between the so-called "old" and "new" member states.

Nebojša Blanuša

Institution


University of Zagreb, Croatia
Faculty of Political Science
Political psychology
https://www.fpzg.unizg.hr/staff/nebojsa.blanusa
 
 

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 

  • Destination 1: Innovative Research on Democracy and Governance
 


Previous European research projects

 


Translatability of the Balkanian post-traumatic experience to the current crisis of democracy


In the last few years my research interest was focused of the question how traumatic events and processes, such as the war, social crises, and profound social change can be used in the symbolic formation of national identity, especially in the post-Yugoslav context. A conceptual framework I tried to build to answer this question was mostly centred on the role of conspiracy theories as condensed ideological response to such events and processes.

Furthermore, I consider conspiracy theories as an expression of political cleavages and often used tool in politics of memory and identity in the last thirty years in the Balkans. By analysing conspiracy theories in this region it is very easy to fell under the influence of the Western pathologizing of the Balkans in the name of so-called universal and rational subjectivity, which perceives it as Europe’s inner ‘Other’, the bloodiest part of ‘Restern’ Europe, or an intermediate area, permeated by political instability, wars, changes of borders and ‘spheres of influence’. On the contrary, my approach perceives the recent history of the Balkans as a possible future of Europe in the context of several EU crises (sovereignty debt crisis, migrant crisis, Brexit, COVID-19 crisis...) and the general crisis of democracy.

In that sense, the Balkanian self-colonised sense of incompleteness, threats of fragmentation and tendency to civilisational ‘regressions’ – in the form of xenophobia, rabid nationalism, authoritarian populism, and welfare chauvinism – already became the spectre haunting the whole of Europe, as well as abroad. Something that was constantly relegated to the edges of sanity suddenly became common reality. The ugly face ascribed to the Balkans suddenly became the face of prominent political leaders in Europe and abroad, who extensively use conspiracy theories and promote hate speech in their disinformation campaigns, with the clear purpose to undermine the rule of law and democratic institutions. Furthermore, with the outbreak of COVID-19 pandemic, conspiracy theories have flourished to unprecedented level. Old conspiracy theories merge with some new ones and motivate political protests of anti-wax and anti-mask movements around the world or find extremely bizarre articulation in the movement such as QAnon, which already found fertile ground in Europe.

All these phenomena remind me of disintegration processes and the rise of extreme nationalism I already studied in the context of the Balkans. I am aware that such knowledge is constrained by its own historical and political conditions of appearance, but the parallels are striking enough. 

Marta Verginella


Institution


University of Ljubljana, Slovenia
Faculty of Arts
Gender Studies, Biographical Studies, Border Studies, Memory Studies, Oral history

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 

 
  • Destination 1: Innovative Research on Democracy and Governance
  • Destination 2: Innovative Research on the European Cultural Heritage and the Cultural and Creative Industries
  • Destination 3: Innovative Research on Social and Economic Transformations - Calls on migration
 


Previous (European) research projects

  • 2014–2017: leader of the project Ženske in prva svetovna vojna (ARRS, national)
     
  • 2014–2016: leader of the project Multikulturna prijateljstva in narodne vezi na presečiščih slovenskega, italijanskega in nemškega sveta (1848–1941) (ARRS, national)
     
  • 2009–2012: leader of the project Pravna in politična zgodovina žensk na Slovenskem (ARRS, national)
     
  • 2004–2007: member of the project INTERREG IIIA/Phare CBC Italia_Slovenia Dalla terra divisa al confine ponte. Frattura e collaborazione nelle aree di confine tra Italia e Slovenia nel secondo dopoguerra (1945–1965)

 

Although women are an integral part of the population that saw wars, forced mass migrations, and post-war traumas on European soil in the 20th century, they were often ignored in historiographical narratives.

Historiographical studies bypassed their experiences and activities in post-war periods, ignoring the specifics of their lives, especially in areas that underwent the most profound geopolitical changes in Europe. If we examine closely the post-war female presence in multiethnic border areas, especially in Central and Eastern Europe, we discover how post-war periods determined the dynamics of gender, but also how this dynamics altered according to one’s belonging to either minority or majority, as well as according to generational identity.

It is also possible to find out why, in many cases, ethnical minority and politically disadvantaged environments turned out to be more favourably disposed towards women's activities and emancipation than majority environments or politically dominant ones, but also how the social space became narrower for those who did not opt for a strong ethnic identity or ideological orthodoxy. Whether the post-war period was a “window of opportunity” depended on women’s social affiliation, as this was mainly a period of economic precariousness and of the social marginalization of the poorest.

To take into account the category of gender in history of the post-war period is to have a more comprehensive and in-depth understanding of the mechanisms of continuity and discontinuity of political, social, economic, and cultural processes, which were shaken, interrupted, but not necessarily brought to a grinding halt by wars.

The decision to take a transnational and comparative approach in the case of research on post-war women in the Northern Adriatic offers the possibility to overcome the narrowness and deformation of the natiocentric historiographical view, which is still predominant, even though it produces distorted representations and twisted European mirrors, as maintained by the Spanish historian Josep Fontana.

Marinos Ioannides


Institution

 
Cyprus University of Technology, Cyprus
UNESCO Chair on Digital Cultural Heritage 
www.digitalheritagelab.eu 
 
 

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 

  • Destination 2: Innovative Research on the European Cultural Heritage and the Cultural and Creative Industries
 


Previous European research projects

 


When artefacts, monuments and cultural heritage sites talk…


Although museums vary in nature and may have been founded for all sorts of reasons, central to all museum institutions are the collected objects, which are knowledge and memory carriers organized in a well standardized catalogue system.

The outbreak of coronavirus (COVID-19) pandemic is considered the most significant global health disaster of this century and one of the most significant challenges that humanity has faced since the second World War. From March 2020 onwards, most countries took radical, unprecedented measures to counter the spread of the virus, resulting in the closure of museums, monuments and sites to the public. According to a report by UNESCO, out of 182 states, 156, closed their museums. Therefore, 90% of museums, (equal to 85000 institutions), have closed their doors during the crisis, while nearly a third has significantly reduced their staff, and up to 10% faces the danger of being permanently closed. The required lockdown and social distancing have caused many cultural and heritage sectors to reappraise and revisit the innovative online and virtual methods for awareness, learning, exhibition, and outreach. As the ongoing COVID-19 experience indicates, the future of museum patronage is unpredictable and certainly under threat. In response, the sector has reacted rapidly in developing a more significant online and engaging presence. According to International Committee of Museum (ICOM) 2020, knowledge spaces (museums) have increased their digital activities by an average of 15%. The two most popular activities that museums have started since the lockdown, i.e. live events and online exhibitions, have increased respectively by 12.28% and 10.88%. Social media posting has also increased significantly by 47.49%.

However, the greatest challenge in ICT and the scientific breakthrough –during the digital transformation period-, lies in the reverse engineering and the reconstruction of the past for the creation of knowledge from complex multi modal structures available after mass 2d and 3d digitization projects from our tangible cultural heritage.

Our thousand years old museum artefacts, sites and monuments, are always talking, but we are not currently in the position to fully experience and understand their stories. By digitizing them and bringing together all their related multimedia data available, we are able to recover their memories and stories, but we are still trying to find key and novel ICT tools, which can help and support us to analyze this big complex data structures, so that the memory of the past can be recreated, reconstructed, transferred to the present, preserved and processed so that the generations to come will learn from the past and improve the future.

However, as we continue to rely on the advancing technologies, to digitize, model, recover and preserve the stories of the past, the need for standards is becoming ever more urgent.  How can we tackle the individual complexities of Cultural Heritage and at the same time, how can we ensure the IPR, the long-term preservation and the quality of our digital memories/stories produced?

Izabela Grabowska


Institution
 

SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities in Warsaw, Poland
Institute of Social Sciences, Labour market, human capital and migration
Sociology, economics and migration studies

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 

  • Destination 3: Innovative Research on Social and Economic Transformations - Calls on migration
 


Previous European research projects


EU funded projects
National projects
  • 2021-2024 National Science Center Poland OPUS 37 BigMig: Digital and non-digital traces of migrants in Big and Small Data approaches to human capacities
     
  • 2018-2021 National Science Center and Research Council of Lithuania, DAINA 1 bilateral research program; CEEYouth: The comparative study of young migrants from Poland and Lithuania in the context of Brexit
     
  • 2016-2020 National Science Center Poland SONATA BIS 18; Education-to-domestic-and-foreign labour market transitions of youth: The role of locality, peer group and new media
     
  • 2012-2015 National Science Center Poland HARMONIA 4; cooperation with University of Roehampton; Diffusion of Culture Through Social Remittances between Poland and The United Kingdom
 


Voice of the research community is heard more about the content, not about the rationale for the double-stage application procedure for Horizon
 

I have been in this „research business“ for nearly 15 years. It took me a while to get a know-how to receive international grants. Next to succsseful applications, I had also many failures but I did not give up and reworked the applications for new funding opportunities.

One day I need to write down my CV of failuers because people are eager to see successes only. I have been cooperating with the National Contact Point for last few years and I cherish this cooperation as I am always updated with what is going on with EU Framework Programs. I can consult the content of the calls in my diciplines and I am informed about training opportunities for my younger collegues. I

wished we were better informed by the EC how the principles of research programs are worked out and why these not the other. I had also an opportunity to speak at Net4Society event about my experiences in acting in the international Research Newtork IMISCOE and about being the national expert for the European Commission.

Net4Society is a really good idea of the natwork of national contact points from all EU countries. They also organise matching events where I met many potential consortium partners.

We are on the same page as coming to the on-going discussion about introducing double-stage procedure in the EU Framework Programs‘ calls as scholars and researchers put incredible amount of work (many months next to other projects, teaching and admin) with very low chances to get them. The double-stage procedure would help saving lots of scholarly power and would help to redirect it to other activities and funding opportunities.

Zsolt Demetrovics


Institution


ELTE PPK Institute of Psychology, Hungary
Mental health, human personality, addictions (subtance based and behavioural)

 
 

Which of the 3 destinations in Horizon Europe Cluster 2 are you interested in? 


Destination 3: Innovative Research on Social and Economic Transformations
 


Previous research projects

 

 

The COVID pandemic had a great impact on all aspects of our lives. Spatial distancing, the increased usage of electronic tools, the increased screen time, the pressure on using new techniques and acquiring new skills all had a great impact on our mental health. We experienced great achievements at our Faculty in this regard as the developments forced us to use these techniques and to assist (mentor) each other in using and further developing our teaching methodology. These developments will certainly sustain in the post-COVID times.

Nonetheless, we also see arising problems as well. Our Faculty and especially the Institute of Psychology initiated several small- and large-scale studies related to this issue targeting some crucial topics. One of them is dealing with the lifestyle of people during the pandemic covering issues such as the patterns of compliance behaviour with preventive public health measures supposed to be beneficial in mitigating the pandemics. The results of the survey (covering 5000 persons) revealed that people show more compliance with the preventive measures if they assess higher the severity of the disease, and women in general are more compliant than man. Another study with several data collection waves revealed that compliance behaviour might be related to political/ideological beliefs and the personal trust in scientific research. The pandemic is having a huge impact on the mental health of the population; the stress level is much higher in these days than normally.

The isolation because of social distancing further increases the stress level which can trigger different mental health problems, among them addictive problems. The usage of electronic devices has dramatically increased. As an inevitable advantage, these devices made it possible to stay in touch with our loved ones, but at the same time the increased stress level and the extensive use of these devices can contribute to the development and augmentation of addictive behaviours, especially addictions related to these devices, i.e.: problematic online gaming, addictive use of social media, excessive online shopping, etc. An additional issue is the feeling of insecurity as the information pouring on us makes nearly impossible to find the truly credible sources, which could help to orient ourselves in a rational on one hand and well-being promoting way on the other. Another research initiated by the Institute, is related to the conspiracy theories. People, when the insecurity feeling is stronger and when information is overwhelming, moreover, many times controversial, are ready to find easy to understand and easy to digest explanations. Conspiracy theories perfectly meet these needs, especially in the domain of health which closely affects everyone.

Overall, we can conclude that this pandemic gives a lot of food for thought and psychology with its broad and transdisciplinary approaches can contribute a lot to better understand the human behaviour in such tough times.
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Net4Society is a Horizon 2020 project funded by the European Union, Grant Agreement no. 838335. The newsletter does not convey the opinion of the European Commission.
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