For a period of 4 years an interdisciplinary group of 2 postdocs and 1 PhD-researcher will study to what extent differences within Europe in both fertility and institutional diversity in elderly care provisions – both as consequences of the developing European marriage pattern in the area of Western Europe – positively influenced the life expectancy at a later age. Various forms of collective action played an important role in supporting elderly people in this area.

The researchers will become part of the research team ‘Institutions for collective action’ (part of the social and economic history group, Department of History and Art History) which studies the emergence, evolution and impact of various forms of self-governing institutions.

Tine De Moor is Professor of Institutions for Collective Action in Historical Perspective at Utrecht University. She is in charge of two large projects on institutions for collective action, of which one is a European Research Council Starting Grant.

For more information on this new project, see www.collective-action.info

Research into Instituties at Utrecht University

Tine De Moor’s research fits in the theme ‘Institutions‘, one of Utrecht University’s four strategic theme. The central question in this theme is: How can institutions, i.e. the formal and informal rules of human transaction, contribute to sustainable prosperity, equality and democracy? Specialists in the fields of economics, public administration, sociology, law and history work together to find answers to this question.

Digital ‘second life’, genetically modified food, advanced prosthetics, robotics and reproductive technologies are familiar facets of our globally linked and technologically mediated societies. This has blurred the traditional distinction between the human and its others, exposing the non-naturalistic structure of the human. Braidotti argues that the challenge of the posthuman condition consists in seizing the opportunities for new social bonding and community building, while pursuing sustainability and empowerment.

Rosi Braidotti is Distinguished Professor at Utrecht University and founding director of the Centre for the Humanities. Earlier this month she received an honorary doctorate from the University of Linköping, Sweden.

During an official ceremony in Linköping she will receive a laurel wreath and a ring. The university praises her key contributions to continental philosophy at the intersection with cultural politics, social and political theory in general, and to feminist phyilosophy and intersectional gender studies in particular. As a pioneer in European women’s studies, she has been inspirational for the start up and development of the international Gender Excellence Centre at Linköping university.

Rosi Braidotti is founder and director of the Centre for the Humanities at Utrecht University. Since 2011 she is Distinguished Professor at the UU. She has an excellent international academic reputation, and has written numerous books and articles including modern classics such as Nomadic Subjects: Embodiment and Sexual Difference in Contemporary Feminist Theory (2nd edition 2011) and Metamorphoses: Towards a Materialist Theory of Becoming (2002). Her works have been translated into more than 20 languages. In 2007 the university of Helsinki bestowed an honorary doctorate on her.

At the initiative of Dr Franck Meijboom and Prof. Marcus Düwell, both ethics researchers at Utrecht University, the League of European Research Universities (LERU) has published an agenda for ethics’ research in Horizon 2020.

Last autumn, Meijboom and Düwell held a meeting with ethics’ scientists to discuss the position and role of ethics in Horizon 2020, the European funding programme for research and innovation. They agreed to write a statement and annex on the ‘Agenda for Ethics’ Research in H2020’. These documents elaborate further on the LERU advice paper ‘Social Sciences and Humanities: essential fields for European research and in Horizon 2020’, published in June 2012.

Ethics essential for responsible research

In the paper ethics is presented as an essential discipline to deal with the normative dimensions of the themes and topics mentioned in Horizon 2020. The claim that ethics is essential to foster responsible research and innovation is further elaborated in this statement and ideas are presented on how this can be operationalised. In the Annex, specific ethical questions related to the themes of Horizon 2020 are presented with best practice examples in ethics research with a multidisciplinary character.

The statement and annex can be downloaded from the LERU website.

Three calls have recently been opened:

• Marie Curie Intra-European Fellowships for Career Development (IEF): mobility within Europe for experienced researchers, duration is 12-224 months.
• Marie Curie International Incoming Fellowships (IIF): fellowships for non-European researchers in the EU.
• Marie Curie International Outgoing Fellowships for Career Development (IOF): fellowships for EU researchers outside EU, including a return phase of 12 months.

Due to the summer holidays in July and August you are strongly advised to start as soon as possible with your application and to contact the Faculty’s EU Liaison Office as soon as possible.

More information, including application guides, can be found at the European Commission’s Research Participants Portal.

If you are considering applying for one of these grants, you may contact the EU Liaison Office for more information and assistance (on procedures, tips and tricks and on making the budget): h.winkel@uu.nl, tel. (030) 253 4136.

Read more in Dutch

Read more in Dutch.

Dr Alec Badenoch (Media and Culture Studies) has obtained a postdoc position in the HERA-funded project ‘Transnational Radio Encounters. Mediations of Nationality, Identity and Community through Radio’. The project, led by Prof. Golo Föllmer (Martin-Luther-University Halle-Wittenberg, Germany), has received 1 million Euros within the framework of the HERA Cultural Encounters scheme.

‘Transnational Radio Encounters’ focuses on transnational radio phenomena in the past and present both as means of mediating national identities across borders, and of structuring intercultural encounters. The CRP will contribute to the appreciation of radio as a powerful means of the constitution and representation of “imagined communities” across national and social boundaries in a process of “cultural globalisation”.

Participants

• Per Jauert, Aarhus University, Denmark
• Jacob Kreutzfeldt, University of Copenhagen, Denmark Principal Investigator 4:
• Alec Badenoch, Utrecht University, The Netherlands
• Peter Lewis, London Metropolitan University, United Kingdom
• Caroline Mitchell, University of Sunderland, United Kingdom

Until September 2012, Alec Badenoch already worked at the Department of Media and Culture Studies at Utrecht University. He will return there as of September 2013. Currently he is working on a project at Paris Sorbonne in the field of European media history.

It also explores various matters of justice, including daily work both done by ICC staff in The Hague and in the field to ensure that justice happens. The ICC is the first permanent, treaty-based, international criminal court established to help end impunity for the perpetrators of the most serious crimes of concern to the international community, namely war crimes, crimes against humanity and genocide.

More information: library website

At the Student Research Conference Bachelor students from The Netherlands and Flanders will present their research. The Student Research Conference is an initiative of the Association of Universities (VSNU) and University College Roosevelt and is co-organized by another university annually.

This year the Student Research Conference will take place on the 20th November at the Amsterdam University College.An academic committee consisting of academic experts will judge the submitted papers and will select the best bachelor research of 2013.

Website Student Research Conference 2013