Understanding the Role of Diversity in European Research

The recent intensive sociopolitical debates on racism and the colonialism, which created a wave of protests across the Global North, has broken the ordinariness of the racial status quo endemic to the modern social institutions. In academia, it has enforced a series of initiatives, asking for reconsidering curricula and diversity quotas.

The URDER project takes a step back from these societal debates to understand how practices of diversity are understood and applied by those who have a central impact on academic knowledge production and science more generally: the reviewers of academic grants.

By studying the evaluation practices of the review panelists of the European Research Commission grant awards, the project will explore how scientific excellence is linked with diversity practices in the European research space.

Bringing together (a) science policy studies, (b) cultural sociology, and (c) postcolonial critique, the URDER project seeks to investigate how the European academic elites in social sciences and humanities understand the role of decolonial, anti-racist, and diversity initiatives in European research.

The proposed project will allow for training the Fellow in science policy, research management, and research evaluation while the Fellow will offer her valuable knowledge in postcolonial theories, feminist epistemology, and intersectionality.

To provide conceptual overlaps between these fields of research will allow for critical assessment of diversity initiatives and propose effective solutions to address diversity in academia.