The headquarters of the National Science Centre in Kraków hosted a conference promoting the Basic Research programme funded under the 3rd EEA and Norway Grants’ edition. This year, the event was devoted to Humanities and Social Sciences.
Organised by the National Science Centre, the conference brought together renowned researchers, innovators and stakeholders from Poland and Norway, providing them with a platform to share knowledge and exchange experiences.
“Sharing knowledge and ideas among researchers from different backgrounds is the foundation for the advancement of knowledge”, emphasised Dr Marcin Liana, Deputy NCN Director at the opening of the conference. In her address, Siv Haugan, delegate of the Research Council of Norway, the institution that represents the Donors in the Basic Research programme, added that the Donors consider Humanities and Social Sciences an important research area and presented the opportunities for funding in these disciplines under Horizon Europe.
During the conference, project teams and individual researchers from Polish and Norwegian academic centres also presented their research projects and detailed the findings they had obtained in grants awarded under calls such as GRIEG, POLS and IDEALAB. Participants could find out, for instance, how online social networks can support collective resistance to disinformation, hear about women’s activism and its moral and cultural foundations from the example of Kurdish society, and learn how psychology and social development sciences could be combined to test the relationship between folk theories of social development and the concept of ideal wellbeing.
The conference also featured an expert panel entitled Social Transformations in the Age of Polarization, moderated by Prof. Nina Witoszek from the University of Oslo. Its panellists discussed the challenges of mounting social polarisation, shared their observations and recommended possible measures.
The panellists included researchers working on Polish-Norwegian projects under the GRIEG call: Dr Katarzyna Jaśko from the Jagiellonian University, Dr hab. Jarosław Michałowski from the SWPS University of Social Sciences and Humanities and Dr Paweł Marczewski from the Stefan Batory Foundation, operator of the Active Citizens programme under the 3rd EEA and Norway Grants. They presented their research findings from projects focused on social challenges in the age of polarisation, and together arrived at the following conclusions:
- understanding: they emphasised the need to understand the multifaceted nature of societies, including the complex social impact of polarisation on a local and global scale;
- dialogue and empathy: they pointed out the necessity of social dialogue at every stage of decision-making that impacts societies, including the need to work toward an inclusive society that would integrate diverse viewpoints and cultivate empathy as the key tools to mitigate polarisation.
The panel moderator, Prof. Nina Witoszek, also underscored the important role of research and education in addressing civilisational challenges in an increasingly diverse world.
About EEA and Norway Grants
EEA and Norway Grants consist of funds donated by Iceland, Liechtenstein and Norway to reduce social and economic disparities within the European Economic Area and strengthen bilateral relations with the 15 beneficiary countries in Central and Southern Europe.
To learn more about the programme, as well the projects and plans for further cooperation, watch our conference video.
