HERA Crisis programme Knowledge Exchange Facilitator announced

HERA Crisis programme Knowledge Exchange Facilitator announced

HERA is pleased to announce that, following a competitive assessment process, Professor Jenny Wüstenberg of Nottingham Trent University (United Kingdom) has been appointed as Knowledge Exchange Facilitator – complementing the ten projects successfully funded under the ‘Crisis: Perspectives from the Humanities’ call. Jenny will lead a three and a half year knowledge exchange programme, titled “Knowledge Exchange for Slow Hope” (KESH), which will bring together researchers, HERA funders and external stakeholders across Europe to support communication and collaboration, provide training, and nurture strong cohort relationships to create foundations for future partnerships. This will include the organisation of two multinational conferences which will bookend the duration of these successful projects. She will endeavour to make the case for the positive and creative potential of the humanities in the current moment through spotlighting excellence in research and engaging with key European and national policy forums.

Professor Wüstenberg is a Professor of History & Memory Studies, the Chair of the Memory Studies Research Group in the Centre for Research in History, Heritage and Memory Studies, and the Co-Chair of AIMS@NTU (Advancing Interdisciplinary Memory Studies) at Nottingham Trent University. Her research interests centre around the involvement of social movements and civil society in memory politics, as well as on transnational and relational perspectives on memory studies. She is particularly concerned with how societies remember gradual developments like family separation, democratisation and environmental change. As well as being the elected Chair of the COST Action on Slow Memory (CA20105), an-EU funded research network that will run from 2021-2025, Jenny is also the co-founder of the Memory Studies Association, an international professional organisation that connects memory scholars and practitioners.

After receiving her PhD in Government & Politics from the University of Maryland, she worked at the School of International Service at American University, the Free University of Berlin and the Independent Academic Commission at the Federal Ministry of Justice for the Critical Study of the National Socialist Past. She also spent three and a half years as DAAD Visiting Assistant Professor of Politics and German & European Studies at York University in Toronto.

The successful projects in the Crisis: Perspectives on the Humanities call will address innovative outlooks on the phenomena of crises past and present including the mapping of environmental health crises, religious responses to geopolitical crises, the Crisis of Migration Discourse and coastlines as zones of ecocultural crisis. Full details of the funded projects can be found here.

“Knowledge Exchange for Slow Hope” (KESH) will bring together scholars and stakeholders across these projects through knowledge sharing, critical training, and creating spaces to slow down. Professor Wüstenberg as KEF, together with a specially recruited Research and Innovation Associate (RIA), and the NTU Institute for Knowledge Exchange Practice (IKEP) will pursue three objectives:

1. To facilitate knowledge exchange (KE) across the cohort to enhance the impact of research and advocate for the voice of the humanities
2. To create skills and capacity across all projects, in order enable effective responses to known and unanticipated crises
3. To establish networks of collaboration that will outlive the Crisis funding and leverage additional resources.

Updates about the knowledge exchange programme will be available on the HERA website in due course.

HERA has been at the vanguard of knowledge exchange and impact in the humanities for more than two decades. Developing best practice in public engagement, knowledge exchange and impact has been a key feature of HERA from its beginning. All HERA projects include plans for impact and knowledge exchange and identify non-academic partners.  HERA proactively stimulates impact through ‘top-up’ impact awards and the appointment of two HERA Knowledge Exchange and Impact Fellows between 2017-2023. Fellows supported funded projects and developed a scheme-wide culture of impact, creating a sustainable infrastructure for impact through events (including for Early Career Researchers) and toolkit. Outputs include a Knowledge Exchange and Impact report and leverage report. Through CHANSE, a 3-year knowledge exchange programme is being delivered which includes the appointment of a Knowledge Exchange Facilitator (2023-2026).