Opening remarks on theme of
‘Cultural Encounters’
Sean Ryder
Chair, HERA Network Board
Cultural Encounters ‘matchmaking event’
Berlin 21 February 2012
What is HERA?
• A partnership among Humanities research councils
across Europe (currently 22 partners, including the
European Science Foundation)
• New JRP (=Joint Research Programme) on ‘Cultural
Encounters’ with 18m+ euro. There are 18 countries
participating.
• Previous HERA JRP in 2009 on ‘Cultural Dynamics’ and
‘Creativity & Innovation’ funded 19 projects.
Why HERA?
Humanities research matters!
Culture matters!
Cultural Encounters
Understanding ‘cultural encounters’ requires that
we:
• Think historically
• Think spatially
• Think about cultural forms: communication,
representation, language, literature, art, media,
institutions, etc.
• Think theoretically
Cultural Encounters focus areas
• Call text lists possible themes and questions to be
addressed by ‘Cultural Encounters’ projects
• Not prescriptive or exhaustive, only a set of suggestions!
Cultural Encounters focus areas
a. Cultural encounters over time and space:
•
•
•
•
•
•
Role of CE in social imaginaries / imagined communities
Drivers of CE
Contribution of arts
Cultural transformations
Lessons of CE for shaping societal values
Cultural consequences of globalisation
Cultural Encounters focus areas
b. Social and political dimensions of CE:
• Historical models of cultural integration – successful and
unsuccessful
• Dynamics between integration and difference
• Influence of policy
• Concepts of tolerance and pluralism
• Linguistic diversity: effects and policy implications
• Identity, belonging, citizenship
Cultural Encounters focus areas
c. Translation, interpretation, mediatisation:
•
•
•
•
•
Adapting cultural practices as a result of CE
Transformative effects of translation
CE as stimulus to creativity
Music, art, performance, literature as barrier or facilitator
Effects of media, digital and otherwise
Think about:
• Collaboration
– Collaboration should give a particular added value to
questions of culture, identity, creativity, innovation.
Addressing familiar questions in new ways impossible for an
individual researcher.
• Interdisciplinarity
– Not a requirement or a doctrine, but an ambition to challenge
the familiar and the conventional
– Interdisciplinarity rather than simple ‘multi-disciplinarity’. Not
just combining the insights of disciplines, but reaching insights
which move the boundaries of the disciplines.
Think about:
• Internationalisation
– A requirement. Like interdisciplinarity, research across national
boundaries should have the capacity to unfix the assumptions
which form the vision-limits and comfort-zones of specific
traditions and identities.
• European added value
– Why will this multi-national research and partnership make a
difference? Why is it something that can’t simply be done with
local or national funding? Also: this criterion not about
“European” topics, but about the better research made
possible though collaboration among researchers based in
Europe.
Think about:
• Transferring/exchanging the knowledge
– How can your research process and/or results be linked and
disseminated to wider world outside the academy? Possibility
for mutually-enriching collaboration with non-academic
partners.