Launch of HERA JRP Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe

20 research teams across Europe to explore global social, cultural, and political challenges.

Humanities in the European Research Area (HERA) announced today (15.04.19) in Dublin that it will invest €20 million in 20 research teams from across Europe as part of a joint research programme which aims to generate new insights into major social, cultural, and political challenges facing Europe and the world.

Research projects, under the theme ‘Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe’, will explore subjects ranging from housing and healthcare to food and festivals. The transnational project is aimed at building partnerships among humanities researchers across Europe and enabling the widespread sharing of knowledge and expertise.

The research is expected to mobilise the wide range of multi-disciplinary perspectives necessary to understanding the relationships between ‘public space’ culture and other phenomena, such as European integration.

Some of the projects receiving funding as part of this programme include:

• EEYRASPS, which will explore the issue of refugee youth, public space and integration in Europe. The project focuses on the role that arts and cultural initiatives play in the lives of refugee youth and their engagements with public space.
• FOOD2GATHER, which investigates the role that food plays in creating public spaces, shaping opportunities for communication and relations between places and inhabitants, thus creating conditions for living together.
• PSPR, which will investigate the impact of intoxicants (tobacco, coffee, tea, sugar, cocoa, and opium) on public spaces, consumption, and sociability in North-Western Europe between c.1600 and 1850.

Commenting in Dublin today, Chair of HERA, Professor Wojciech Sowa said: “This is the fourth joint research programme that we have launched: funding new and exciting humanities-centred projects and supporting transnational collaboration and interdisciplinarity.

“Each research project involves researchers from at least four of the participating 24 countries in the HERA network. The transnational knowledge exchange allows new insights and ideas to be generated – encompassing a wide range of perspectives, cultures and identities.

 

“With the theme of ‘Public Spaces’ we hope that the research projects will deepen cultural understandings of public spaces in a European context and identify new insights that promote the full potential of citizens’ engagement with European public and cultural spaces.”

The HERA partnership consists of research councils from 24 countries in Europe, which are committed to the continued growth and development of collaborative and transnational humanities research across Europe. Key to this development is the support received through designated funding from the European Union’s Horizon 2020 research and innovation programme

The 24 countries are: Austria, Belgium, Czech Republic, Croatia, Denmark, Estonia, Finland, France, Germany, Iceland, Ireland, Italy, Latvia, Lithuania, Luxembourg, Netherlands, Norway, Poland, Slovakia, Slovenia, Spain, Sweden, Switzerland and United Kingdom.

Further information on the HERA network and programmes, including the projects funded under the previous HERA joint research programmes, can be accessed here: http://www.heranet.info/

For more information, contact:
Niamh Breathnach / Ciara Murphy
Alice PR & Events
28 Great Strand Street
Dublin 1, Ireland.

Tel: 003531 558 2151 / 00353 85 146 1231 / 00353 87 962 6231
Email: [email protected]