SOCIAL SCIENCES FOR DEMOCRACY: A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING RESEARCH ON ILLIBERAL SYSTEMS AND FINDING WAYS TO BUILD MORE ROBUST DEMOCRACIES

Project Information

SOS4democracy

Grant agreement ID: 101119678

DOI

10.3030/101119678

EC signature date 17 June 2023

Start date 1 September 2023

End date 31 August 2027

Funded under

• Widening participation and spreading excellence

Total cost

€ 2 714 232,50

EU contribution

€ 2 714 232,50

Coordinated by

INSTITUT ZA KRIMINOLOGIJO PRI PRAVNI FAKULTETI V LJUBLJANI
Slovenia

Periodic Reporting for period 1 - SOS4democracy (SOCIAL SCIENCES FOR DEMOCRACY: A TRAINING PROGRAM FOR IMPROVING RESEARCH ON ILLIBERAL SYSTEMS AND FINDING WAYS TO BUILD MORE ROBUST DEMOCRACIES)

Reporting period: 2023-09-01 to 2026-02-28

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

The turn to illiberalism, often combined with populist anti-European Union rhetoric, represents a serious threat to the future development of the European community. Although most of the recent research on illiberal politics focused on Poland and Hungary, we have seen how illiberal trends emerged in many other countries, including Slovenia, Italy, Bosnia and Herzegovina and Turkey.

Despite the persistent presence of illiberal practices, there is still limited research capacity to address these issues in South-Eastern Europe. The main reasons for the limited research on illiberal trends are the lack of institutional support for new interdisciplinary research programs for studying illiberalism, the lack of support for intersectoral cooperation to include the non-academic sector in research, and the lack of training programs to better equip staff members from the academic and non-academic sector for conducting research on illiberalism.

To fill those gaps, the SOS4democracy project taps the potential of higher education and research organizations, civil society associations, and a news media organization to create an effective training program for researchers, journalists, and activists involved in pro-democracy struggles in Europe.

The project will pursue the following three objectives:
Objective 1: Training-through-research program: To strengthen cooperation and reinforce research and innovation ecosystems in academic and non-academic organizations, the project will develop a training-through-research program to provide researchers, journalists, and civil society activists with the conceptual and methodological tools needed to explore the impact of illiberal practices.
Objective 2: The transfer of know-how between academic and non-academic organizations. To ensure the transfer of know-how between different sectors, the project will develop different training programs.
Objective 3: Training to build and improve research and innovation (R&I) capacity. To improve the overall R&I capacity of the participating organizations, the project will provide training workshops for staff members from both academic and non-academic organizations.

Work performed from the beginning of the project to the end of the period covered by the report and main results achieved so far

To progress towards the planned objectives, team members carried out the following activities within the first 30 months of the project:
Objective 1: To strengthen cooperation between academic and non-academic organizations involved in pro-democracy struggles. This overall objective is divided into the following three sub-objectives:

Objective 1.1: Establish a new inter-sectoral and interdisciplinary training-through-research program to reinforce innovation ecosystems in South-Eastern Europe. To achieve this objective, 28 staff members – 15 from the academic sector and 13 from the non-academic sector – completed 137.6 months of secondments during the reporting period. We have also organized 44 internal workshops, 18 internal dissemination events and two main project events (conferences). The training program included legal, political, criminological, and sociological methods for exploring illiberal systems, civic mechanisms for monitoring illiberal regimes, and how to create more robust democracies.

Objective 1.2: To deliver a program of secondments and skills training for transferring academic know-how to non-governmental and news media organizations. Academic organizations – InstCrim, BOUN, Roma Tre, VUB, UNSA and OzU – provided training on conceptual tools and advanced research methods for exploring illiberalism and training on practical skills needed to conduct high-quality research (e.g. research proposal preparation, integration of ethics in research, open science practices … etc.). In total, 51.1 months of secondments were carried out at 6 academic organizations by 13 staff members from nonacademic organizations.

Objective 1.3: To deliver a program of secondments and skills training for transferring NGO knowledge to researchers and media organizations. The participating civil society organizations – Libera, CAWN and IstanPol – provided training on civic mechanisms for monitoring illiberal governments and strategies for involving civil society in pro-democracy struggles. In total, 86.5 months of secondments involving 15 academic staff members were carried out at non-academic organizations. Those organizations provided the secondees training on government accountability programs (e.g. fact-checking), empowerment actions (e.g. public engagement in anti-corruption and legislative initiatives), and public advocacy at the local and international levels. We also organized 5 workshops providing training on government accountability mechanisms.

Objective 1.4: To deliver a program of secondments and skills training for transferring knowledge from news media organizations to academic staff and staff members of non-governmental organizations. Delo provided seconded staff members with know-how in various media practices (e.g. basic insights into investigative journalism, article editing, producing videocasts and podcasts, and using the media archive for research purposes). In total, 38.8 months of secondments were carried out at Delo by 6 staff members from the academic sector.

Objective 2: To deliver a program of transferable skill training for researchers, innovators, and other research and innovation talents. This overall objective includes the organization of training workshops on research management, knowledge brokering, data stewardship, and knowledge transfers.

Objective 2.1: Training to build R&I transferable skills and leadership capacity. In line with the timetable, we have organized a series of workshops on research management (9 workshops), knowledge brokering (6 workshops), data management (6 workshops) and knowledge transfer (7 workshops). In total, we carried out 28 workshops for project members.

Deliverables: All deliverables planned for the reporting period – 10 in total – have been submitted.

Milestones: All milestones planned for the reporting period – 4 in total – have been achieved on time.

Timetable: We are currently on schedule to achieve all project objectives.

Progress beyond the state of the art and expected potential impact (including the socio-economic impact and the wider societal implications of the project so far)

The project has, so far, produced the following beyond-the-state-of-the-art results:

1) New insights into illiberal cultural policy measures employed to polarize society, influence the interpretation of history, consolidate »traditional values« and ethnonationalism, and normalize political corruption.

2) New knowledge on the factors contributing to the non-normalisation of protests by presenting an account of the long and complex history of protests in Turkey.

3) New insights into how technologies for analyzing data, particularly when integrated with AI, are integrated into authoritarian surveillance practices.