Two ERC Consolidator Grants to Stockholm University

This year Consolidator Grants are awarded to 13 researchers at Swedish universities. Two of these grants go to researchers at Stockholm University:

Lisa Dellmuth, professor of International Relations

Lisa Dellmuth is a professor of International Relations, Department of Economic History and International Relations, and Co-director of the Stockholm Center on Global Governance (SCGG).

After a period of hyperglobalization, protectionist policies have become more entrenched over the past decade. States have produced a slew of domestic subsidies, tariffs, and labour migration policies––policies that can benefit certain industries, but are likely to curtail growth, employment, and multilateral economic cooperation. The goal of the project PROTECT (“Protectionism in Place: Explaining How Subnational Change Affects Public Support for Protectionism”) is to understand why some citizens support protectionism that is costly to them, and to examine how their attitudes are affected by local economic, environmental, and sociocultural change.

“Understanding why people support protectionism is one of the most important questions of our time. Globalization has contributed to historic advances in poverty reduction and improved living standards worldwide. At the same time, it has created winners and losers – some places and groups have flourished, while others have fallen behind,” says Lisa Dellmuth.

“In this project, I seek to understand how these distributional effects, in combination with cultural and psychological factors, shape public support for protectionism. The ERC-funding enables me to carry out the detailed and extensive analysis of local communities needed to understand how attitudes toward protectionism develop – and, in turn, to better grasp the conditions for more effective and inclusive economic policy.”

Evan O’Connor, associate professor of astronomy

Evan O’Connor is associate professor of astronomy at the Department of Astronomy.

A supernova is the final burst of a dying massive star, and thanks to observations and theoretical pursuits, researchers have a comprehensive picture of how this happens. However, a very small fraction of these dying stars is associated with long gamma-ray bursts that stand out due to their extreme nature, including their extreme energies. Compared to typical supernovae, the inner workings of these events are less well known and, due to its complexity, difficult to understand fully. The aim of the COMPACTARS project (“High compactness progenitors and the formation of collapsars and magnetars”) is to understand this explosion mechanism.

“I’m incredible excited and thankful to have this support from the ERC for my research and the support of Stockholm University to carry it out. This will enable not only a clearer understanding of these extreme events but also enable the development of next generation tools for modelling them”, says Evan O’Connor.

Read more about ERC Consolidator Grants