EU's Horizon Europe funding for HSSH affiliated projects

Last year HSSH, together with UH's Research Funding Services, implemented a pilot project offering distinguished researchers support for writing the Horizon Europe consortium application.

Two horizon funding were awarded to UH-led consortia based in the research group led by Emilia Palonen who is one of the three datafication research program directors at the HSSH. Both projects are a result of a bottom-up process with external funding for in-person planning meetings. Mikko Salmela received the HSSH funding and training, as well as funding from Uudenmaan liitto, for the writing of the Politics of Grievance and Democratic Governance (PLEDGE) horizon bid. The COntinuous COnstruction of resilient social COntracts through societal transformations (CO3) was written in close collaboration between Emilia Palonen and Anna Björk and the experienced team at Demos Helsinki who will lead the consortium from late 2024. The total funding from the European Commission for the two consortia is circa 6 million euros and 1.4 million euros are directed to UH in the grant signing stage.

”Our UH teams were busy in the autumn with preparations of launching the two projects, and it feels great now when we are finalising the agreements and look forward to the kick-off meeting in Athens in February 2024 for PLEDGE and Helsinki for CO3,” Salmela and Palonen say.

The support from the HSSH Methodological Unit is involved in both applications, and some of the funding is channeled there in data support and development of new audiovisual methods.

Emilia Palonen is excited about the new research in both cases methodologically addressing multilingual and multi-cultural analysis of social media, particularly short videos in the context of the European Parliamentary Elections in June 2024. "In this also questions of the continuous negotiation of the social contract, especially after the crisis or in a polycrisis is relevant for the future of democracy in Europe."

Mikko Salmela is thrilled about PLEDGE that will study how citizens' grievances develop into democratic and anti-democratic forms of emotional politics. "It is crucial to know more of these two trajectories to be able to create practises and policies that can effectively counter reactionist and authoritarian tendencies and promote democratic civic engagement."

Another HSSH affiliated project funding was awarded to a project with HSSH’s Matti Pohjonen as a collaborator.