The European Research Council (ERC) is a public body for funding of scientific and technological research conducted within the European Union (EU). Established by the European Commission in 2007, the ERC is composed of an independent Scientific Council, its governing body consisting of distinguished researchers, and an Executive Agency, in charge of the implementation. It forms part of the framework programme of the union dedicated to research and innovation, Horizon 2020, preceded by the Seventh Research Framework Programme (FP7). The ERC budget is over €13 billion from 2014 – 2020 and comes from the Horizon 2020 programme, a part of the European Union's budget. Under Horizon 2020 it is estimated that around 7,000 ERC grantees will be funded and 42,000 team members supported, including 11,000 doctoral students and almost 16,000 post-doctoral researchers.
TheHolberg Prize is an international prize awarded annually by the government of Norway to outstanding scholars for work in the arts, humanities, social sciences, law and theology, either within one of these fields or through interdisciplinary work. The prize is named after the Danish-Norwegian writer and academic Ludvig Holberg (1684–1754). The Holberg Prize comes with a monetary award of 6 million Norwegian kroner (NOK), which are intended to be used to further the research of the recipient. The winner of the Holberg Prize is announced in March, and the award ceremony takes place every June in Bergen, Norway.
EURAB was the European Research Advisory Board from 2001 to 2007. Its successor – since 2008 – is the European Research Area Board (ERAB).
A knowledge productionmode is a term from the sociology of science which refers to the way (scientific) knowledge is produced. So far, three modes have been conceptualized. Mode 1 production of knowledge is knowledge production motivated by scientific knowledge alone which is not primarily concerned by the applicability of its findings. Mode 1 is founded on a conceptualization of science as separated into discrete disciplines. Mode 2 was coined in 1994 in juxtaposition to Mode 1 by Michael Gibbons, Camille Limoges, Helga Nowotny, Simon Schwartzman, Peter Scott and Martin Trow. In Mode 2, multidisciplinary teams are brought together for short periods of time to work on specific problems in the real world for knowledge production in the knowledge society. Mode 2 can be explained by the way research funds are distributed among scientists and how scientists focus on obtaining these funds in terms of five basic features: knowledge produced in the context of application; transdisciplinarity; heterogeneity and organizational diversity; social accountability and reflexivity; and quality control. Subsequently, Carayannis and Campbell described a Mode 3 knowledge in 2006.
Helga Marie Hernes is a German-born Norwegian political scientist, diplomat, and politician for the Labour Party.
Alondra Nelson is an American academic, policy advisor, non-profit administrator, and writer. She is the Harold F. Linder chair and professor in the school of social science at the Institute for Advanced Study, an independent research center in Princeton, New Jersey. From 2021 to 2023, Nelson was deputy assistant to President Joe Biden and principal deputy director for science and society of the White House Office of Science and Technology Policy (OSTP), where she performed the duties of the director from February to October 2022. She was the first African American and first woman of color to lead OSTP. Prior to her role in the Biden Administration, she served for four years as president and CEO of the Social Science Research Council, an independent, nonpartisan international nonprofit organization. Nelson was previously professor of sociology at Columbia University, where she served as the inaugural dean of social science, as well as director of the Institute for Research on Women and Gender. She began her academic career on the faculty of Yale University.
Sheila Sen Jasanoff is an Indian American academic and significant contributor to the field of Science and Technology Studies. In 2021 she was elected to the American Philosophical Society. Her research has been recognized with many awards, including the 2022 Holberg Prize "for her groundbreaking research in science and technology studies."
Hilary Ann Rose is a British sociologist.
The Falling Walls Science Summit is an annual science event in Berlin, Germany, which takes place between 7 and 9 November and coincides with the anniversary of the Fall of the Berlin Wall. Guided by the question "Which are the next walls to fall in science and society?" the Science Summit aims to showcase scientific breakthroughs, foster a dialogue between science and general public and connect global leaders from science, business, and media to develop solutions for the greatest challenges of our time. Originally being a one-day conference, the summit has expanded and now includes three days: Falling Walls Pitches on 7 November, Falling Walls Circle on 8 November and Falling Walls Breakthrough Day on 9 November.
Margunn Bjørnholt is a Norwegian sociologist and economist. She is a research professor at the Norwegian Centre for Violence and Traumatic Stress Studies (NKVTS) and a professor of sociology at the University of Bergen. Her research has focused on financial institutions, management and working life and later on gender equality, migration and violence. She has also worked as a consultant, a civil servant, served as an expert to the European Commission and been president of the Norwegian Association for Women's Rights.
Ulrike Felt is an Austrian social scientist, active in the field of Science and Technology Studies. Currently, she holds the chair for Social Studies of Science and is Dean of the Faculty of Social Sciences at the University of Vienna. She also acted as the president of the European Association for the Study of Science and Technology (EASST). From 2002 to 2007, she has been editor-in-chief of the journal "Science, Technology, & Human Values".
Nicola Ann Spaldin FRS is professor of materials science at ETH Zurich, known for her pioneering research on multiferroics.
Véronique Gouverneur is the Waynflete Professor of Chemistry at Magdalen College at the University of Oxford in the United Kingdom. Prior to the Waynflete professorship, she held a tutorial fellowship at Merton College, Oxford. Her research on fluorine chemistry has received many professional and scholarly awards.
The President's Medal is awarded annually by the British Academy to up to five individuals or organisations. It is awarded for "outstanding service to the cause of the humanities and social sciences". It cannot be awarded to Fellows of the British Academy and was created to reward "academic-related activity rather than academic achievement alone". The medals were first awarded in 2010.
Viola Vogel, also known as Viola Vogel-Scheidemann, is a German biophysicist and bioengineer. She is a professor at ETH Zürich, where she is head of the Department of Health Sciences and Technology and leads the Applied Mechanobiology Laboratory.
Natalie Stingelin, Fellow of the Materials Research Society and Royal Society of Chemistry, is a materials scientist and current chair of the School of Materials Science and Engineering at the Georgia Institute of Technology, the University of Bordeaux and Imperial College. She led the European Commission Marie Curie INFORM network and is Editor-in-Chief of the Journal of Materials Chemistry C and Materials Advances.
Henk Borgdorff (1954) is an Amsterdam-based academic, specialised in music theory and artistic research. He is emeritus professor for research in the arts at Leiden University and at the Royal Conservatory of The Hague, University of the Arts The Hague (Netherlands).
Anna Nele Meckler is a professor of Earth Sciences at the University of Bergen, and is also affiliated with the Bjerknes Centre for Climate Research. She specialises in paleoceanography and paleoclimatology, and leads multiple grants to develop new techniques to reconstruct past temperatures, most importantly clumped isotope thermometry. By analysing speleothems Meckler's team can identify how past levels of CO2 in the atmosphere correlate with temperature changes, which gives essential knowledge for predicting future climate change.
Vanessa Claire Wood is an American engineer who is a professor at the ETH Zurich. She holds a chair in Materials and Device Engineering and serves as Vice President of Knowledge Transfer and Corporate Relations.
Pepka Boyadjieva is Professor of Sociology at the Institute of Philosophy and Sociology, Bulgarian Academy of Sciences. Chair of the Scientific Council of the Institute for the Study of Societies and Knowledge and of Institute of Philosophy and Sociology. Vice-Chair of the General Assembly of the Bulgarian Academy of Sciences ; President of the Bulgarian Sociological Association. Expert for the European Commission and Permanent Senior Fellow at Center for Advanced Studies, Sofia. Member of the Editorial Board of the International Sociological Association’s edition Sage Studies in International Sociology, Board Member of International Journal of Lifelong Education since 2008 and of Journal of Social Science Education since 2009. Honorary Professor of Sociology of Education at the University of Nottingham; Professor of Sofia University and New Bulgarian University. Her research interests are in the fields of inequalities in education; social justice and education; education, science and social modernization; university and society; lifelong and adult learning; public representation and images of science and scientists.
