Sociologist Lisa Flower, biologist Øystein Opedal, economic historian Ingrid van Dijk and linguist Karolin Obert have received the prestigious grant from the EU. Their research focuses on video links in court cases, plant adaptation to pollinators, health inequalities over time, and language change in hunter-gatherer societies as they move around.
The ERC Starting Grant is intended for early-career researchers and the only selection criterion is academic skill. The researchers and their projects have been ranked highest in Europe after review from their peers and despite fierce competition. This year, 494 European research projects - of which four were awarded to Lund University - received a share of EUR 780 million.
From the Faculty of Social Sciences, Lisa Flower, associate senior lecturer at the Department of Sociology, has been granted EUR 1.5 million for her project Virtutrials.
Congratulations! What is your research going to focus on?
"I want to explore the difference between physical and virtual meetings and how participation via video link affects those involved in a trial. There is a perception that people should meet face-to-face in court and that the entire legal process might be negatively impacted by e.g. the participation of witnesses or defendants via video link, for example. I want to investigate whether this is true, how the legitimacy of trials and the rituals surrounding them are affected by the absence of all those involved in the courtroom, and how participating via video link affects perceptions of reliability and emotion, such as remorse."
How common is it for people involved in legal proceedings to participate via a video link?
"As in other parts of society, participating online is becoming increasingly common. The technology to enable virtual reality trials with avatars is under development, which would completely remove the physical interactions that take place in a trial."
What do you hope the project will achieve?
"Trials must be structured in a fair way. When we finish our project, we will know if and how a trial can be made fair even when not everyone involved is present in the courtroom."
What does the ERC Starting Grant mean to you?
"It's a fantastic opportunity, a game changer. I will be able to devote five years to this and also employ four doctoral students. Among other things, we will conduct ethnographic fieldwork at around 50 court hearings and quantitative analyses of verdicts from virtual trials. I hope to put Lund University on the map for research on virtual justice."
