POPREBEL was successfully launched last week at the University College of London. The Consortium meeting provided an overview of responsibilities of each partner, particularities of each workpackage and the ways we can work together to foster the multidisciplinarity (rather than interdisciplinarity) which is the originality of our approach. Most of the presentations are available here. Some of them are still missing, but I will be updating the folder when we receive the rest and in the text below I’ll point out to some more specifically.
The post is made as a wiki so please feel free to contribute! @alberto @noemi @john @natalia_skoczylas @amelia
##Firstly, some technical points:
Jarrko Siren, our Project Officer from the EC (Research and Executive Agency) emphasized the fact that POPREBEL is one of the three projects who won the call and encouraged us to get in touch with the other two projects for possible collaboration and exchange of experiences because the approaches are quite different yet complementary:
- one is DEMOS - similar to our research methods but doesn’t concentrate to a certain geographic area, coordinated by the Hungarian Academy of Sciences – Centre for Social Sciences and the other is
- PaCE - more digital and quantitative research, coordinated by the Manchester Metropolitan University.
EC/REA will be measuring the success with several indicators from which the most relevant might be the Open Access to publications and data at no charge to the user. Types of data to be deposited is data needed to validate the results presented in scientific publications (“underlying data”) and other data as specified in a Data Management Plan (DMP) @matthias @alberto. DMP is due in the month 6 – it requires describing as much as possible in the first version then updating during the project when we make decisions. It is quite technical (not narrative), addressed to the data mangers. There is an online manual from the UK Digital Curation Center – a tool for creating the DMP with guidelines through the steps, also possible to export in different formats, and a template from the EC that the UCL can provide.
If there will be any changes in previously agreed objectives, deliverables and milestones defined in the description of the action there are two possible cases: either it is a significant change (for example, a WP leader is different, or the tasks have to be redefined) it needs to be discussed but if the change is minor (it does not impact the role of partners) it just has to be explained in the reports. At least one person engaged in the project must be familiar with the Annotated Model Grant Agreement - we will be going back to it often - this will be my task in Edgeryders, so for all the questions about the rules and procedures you can come to me.
The reports and deliverables are to be submitted through the FTOP (Funding and Tenders Portal) – the coordinator will be given the access to it in January next year. POPREBEL has 54 deliverables and 9 ethic deliverables – to be noted: the reviewers have to give opinion for all of them – so we shouldn’t write longer than necessary. More about the deadlines and how things work from the administrative and project management side can be find in the presentation by Silvia Gigli (UCL).
Main current ethical issues are related to personal and sensitive data, data export / import, risks to participants, misuses = all needs to be explained in ethics deliverables (due end of April). The ethics review will be planned for June 2019. Find more about this in @Richard’s presentation – they are due in Month 3. Some of them will be adapted from the FATIGUE and the Edgeryders will contribute and incorporate the planned ethics strategy. @alberto
For the effective outreach we are free to decide what is best for the project and create the right communication strategy @nadia. References to consult:
- "Communicating EU Research & Innovation - Guidance for project participants " and the
- “Social Media Guide for EU funded R&I projects”
Help will be needed with the website (it was commissioned and should be ready by mid-March) – the basic structure will be there but questions arose related to a decision of having a blog. Edgeryders’ proposal is to use the RSS to write blog posts which can be then visible both on the website and the platform. Anyway, working out loud is equivalent and equally relevant as blogging so platform in this case is the right way to go. Some books and articles will be made available by the FATIGUE team and we should decide which repository to use.
Edgeryders should contribute and incorporate the outreach and communication strategy to the first version of the project’s Dissemination and Communication Strategy – due in the month 3.
##Some content related points:
@Jan, principal investigator (UCL), explained what is POPREBEL all about in his presentation. First question discussed: how to achieve multidisciplinarity? This should be a joint effort of maintaining constant collaboration – we need to come up with a plan and ensure everyone is on board when it comes to using the platform. The aim is to create our own sub-networks that will hopefully emerge naturally across the boundaries of work packages. To understand populism we need to rethink the concepts and create several typical scenarios of economic, political, cultural and social factors.
Especially relevant is the synergy with the sister project FATIGUE – how to improve the exchange of knowledge and make better use of it? This is closely related to the dissemination question. Some of the events and meetings were already announced during discussions – it is important to save the date for the relevant ones so I will start a separate thread with the main aim of creating a comprehensive calendar.
In general, here are some of the main ideas, questions and reactions during the meeting:
- The idea of neo-traditionalism should be closely linked with the idea of culture (WP3). What is the direction that CEE societies are taking? Is there an alternative to liberal democracy and or alternatives to EU integration?
- New traditionalism is the approach taken to feel secure. The model needs to be re-defined throughout the project. Is it possible to create a coherent explanation of socio-economic tendencies in CEE societies through the concept of neo-feudalism? What is the territorial dimension of neo-feudal tendencies in CEE?
- The role of Edgeryders is important here to identify how people think, but focusing on present-future building rather than putting attitudes into concept boxes to explain them - @noemi
- One of the WP3 deliverables will be a glossary of basic concepts ideally contributing to the multidisciplinarity. Edgeryders can explore the meaning of populism and how the term emerges in conversations.
- Economic populism should be understood as a consequence rather than a cause. Economic insecurity is something Edgeryders can also investigate through conversations.
- Likewise for WP6 – there is an opportunity of using the platform to consider different scenarios and responses.
@noemi will be posting soon more details about the community building and management.
All contributions, thoughts and suggestions are welcome 