HERA Joint Research Programme Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe

Project Information

HERA-JRP-PS

Grant agreement ID: 769478

DOI

10.3030/769478

Project closed

EC signature date 22 August 2017

Start date 1 August 2017

End date 31 January 2023

Funded under

• SOCIETAL CHALLENGES - Europe In A Changing World - Inclusive, Innovative And Reflective Societies

Total cost

€ 20 513 750,00

EU contribution

€ 5 000 000,00

Coordinated by

NEDERLANDSE ORGANISATIE VOOR WETENSCHAPPELIJK ONDERZOEK
Netherlands

Periodic Reporting for period 2 - HERA-JRP-PS (HERA Joint Research Programme Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe)

Reporting period: 2020-02-01 to 2023-01-31

Summary of the context and overall objectives of the project

HERA – “Humanities in the European Research Area” – is a network of 26 national agencies that leads and develops funding opportunities for humanities researchers across Europe. Since its establishment in 2002, HERA has invested over 75 million euros in four joint research programmes (JRPs), and launched the joint CHANSE Transformations programme in collaboration with the social sciences network NORFACE. These have built European capacity for transnational and interdisciplinary research, advocated for the societal value of the humanities and promoted excellence in research management practices. By pooling national research funds to create transnational partnerships, HERA has added significant value to national funding programmes and to the European Framework ones for over a decade. HERA members also collaborate – as individual funders and collectively through the HERA network – with other initiatives (e.g. the JPI Cultural Heritage, NORFACE, ORA, Trans-Atlantic Platform, EASSH, EqUIP and Net4Society) to influence and shape future agendas for European research.

HERA JRPs are the only large transnational funding competition for humanities researchers. JRPs are designed as large-scale, focused research efforts that avoid duplication of resources and effort across the component partners. They facilitate research projects of far greater scale, reach and impact than what can be achieved at national levels. Moreover, they allow for better research as groups in different countries are collaborating, bringing their own specific cultural knowledge.

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

HERA’s fourth Joint Research Programme: “Public Spaces: Culture and Integration in Europe” (HERA JRP PS), funded 20 multi-disciplinary, transnational projects. It mobilised the intellectual energies and collaborative potential of a wide range of humanities disciplines in new ways, and further developed the knowledge base of the European Research Area by investigating the relationships between public space(s), culture, integration and diversity.

Through time, public spaces have acted as open domains of human encounters and exchanges, often negotiated or contested. They are closely connected with the expression and exchange of values and beliefs and with the formation and appropriation of institutions, and thus public spaces lend themselves to cultural analysis of these processes and structures. The aim of the HERA “Public Spaces” programme was to deepen the theoretical and empirical cultural understanding of public spaces in a European context. It was designed to facilitate a broad range of cultural approaches to conceptualising public space, its structural and processual formations, and its possible outcomes in terms of integration, exclusion, disintegration, fragmentation, hybridization, amalgamation or transmission.

The projects shed new light on the dynamics through which public spaces shape, and are shaped by cultural activity. The projects explored how the relations between culture and integration have been modelled and how research into public spaces could be better understood. This involved investigating a variety of perspectives, for example concepts of, and approaches to, public space(s), historical patterns and forms of public spaces, and the roles played by culture, art and creativity in shaping public spaces, or the impact of migration on culture and the creation and use of public spaces. The research gave new insights that promote the full potential of citizens’ engagement with European public and cultural spaces, stimulated public, political and scholarly debate about the future prospects of European integration, and studied new modes of interactive and reciprocal engagement between academics and various types of stakeholders including those working in the media, creative industries, and heritage sectors. The challenge for research was also to identify how the relations between culture and integration within the context of public spaces have been modelled and how they can be better understood in order to contribute to a better world.

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)

HERA has played a major role in promoting societal “impact” as a key element of planning and delivery in humanities research projects, and has promoted and enabled new collaborations between academic and non-academic stakeholders. It has delivered a number of additional activities that enhance the reach and impact of the research. The HERA JRP PS created new knowledge around issues of public space(s), culture and integration in Europe and established partnerships across research and societal partners, impact policy, strengthened the HERA network as a pan-European body, and acted as a platform for new activities that will enhance the ERA in the future. All projects collaborated with non-academic and associated partners to engage in Knowledge Exchange and public engagement activities, which resulted in a variety of outputs such as exhibitions, policy briefs, museum apps, animations, NGO and local government consultations, and festival events.

The outbreak of the COVID-19 pandemic has posed immense challenges, not only to healthcare, medicine and science, but also to society as a whole as we confront the political, economic, social and cultural effects of the virus. These include complex and intertwined ethical and sociocultural issues ranging from social compliance to concepts of care, the ethics of data gathering and research, the value of expertise, attitudes to the elderly and those with “underlying conditions”, reconfigurations of what constitutes a public and a private sphere, new methods of communication during the outbreak, and, as it has become obvious in many if not in all countries affected by COVID-19, political decision-making and the processing and presentation of information. In the midst of these challenges, the importance of culture has been abundantly clear as a resource of expression and collective well-being. Moreover, digital innovation has taken place in numerous areas of research and practice, including digital approaches to cultural production and access under conditions of lockdown and isolation.

Funded projects not only produced new theoretical insights that promote the full potential of citizens’ engagement with European public and cultural spaces but, in many cases, also stimulated public, political and scholarly debate about the future. Projects built new modes of interactive and reciprocal engagement between academics and various types of stakeholders, including those working in the media, creative industries, and heritage sectors. These collaborations proved to be the true vehicles of European integration. The projects demonstrated flexibility and creative ways in which they dealt with all the limitations and restrictions impacting both the scientific activities and the workings of everyday life.

HERA JRP Public Spaces leaflet cover