Ferenc Szucs receives ERC Starting Grant
The European Research Council awards a starting grant to Ferenc Szucs at Stockholm University, for his research project about alternative realities.
Photo: Rickard Kilström
The European Research Council (ERC) awards a total of 22 researchers in Sweden this year, of which 4 are at Stockholm University. The grant aims to support scholars at the beginning of their careers.
Ferenc Szucs is an Associate Professor of Economics, and his project is titled ”The Economics and Politics of Alternative Realities”. The ERC grant is EUR 1,297.878 over a period of five years.
What is the project about?
”Many people hold incorrect beliefs about basic facts, for example that climate change does not exist, or the 2020 US Presidential Election was ’stolen’. These misbeliefs often combine into a semi-coherent alternative reality, which is based on the sinister motives of influential actors. In this project, I analyze the demand and supply of such alternative realities to understand the success of political conspiracy theories that serve to discredit the intellectual elite, or fear-mongering that prompt mobilization in a conflict.”
How might your findings be put to use?
”By better understanding the conditions under which alternative realities emerge, we can find ways to make societies more resistant to false narratives.”
What is the next step to move forward?
”First, we plan to create novel models of the supply and demand of alternative realities. Then we aim to build a rich dataset on political narratives to document alternative realities and to test the implications of the models.”
Last updated: 2024-09-05
Source: Department of Economics