History
Jean-Jacques Hublin
Homo sapiens’ evolution in northwestern Africa is explored by applying cutting-edge analytic methods to records from Moroccan cave sites and working with local researchers to recon-struct anatomy, technology, diet and symbolism; all findings to be on open access.
Philosophy and Letters
David Damrosch
Damrosch’s research project will bring around ten graduate students and postdoctoral fellows to the Institute for World Literature as members of the year’s Balzan Colloquium. Each summer for five years, they will develop their work on a common topic in world literary studies for publication.
Law and rights
Braithwaite’s Balzan research project aims to renew and expand the social movement for restorative justice by connecting young scholars in Africa, China, and worldwide to collaborations with scholars from Europe and across the Global North, China, and Australia.
Social sciences
Activities in the third year of the project included a virtual workshop and study facilities utilization. Publications, presentations, and ongoing research projects highlight the team’s contributions to understanding time perceptions during crises.
Medicine
DZL’s Balzan Prize supports a cross-disciplinary project investigating the effects of exposure to e-cigarette vapour. Preliminary results show that while e-cigarettes are sold as healthy substitutes of tobacco smoking, ingredients of the vapour contain substances with physiological influence.
Social sciences
Robert O. Keohane
A report on Keohane’s research project’s first two years, highlighting a workshop at the Center for Advanced Study in the Behavioral Sciences at Stanford University and reflecting on its experimental mentorship and the achievements of its young scholars.
History
Michael Cook
A report on Cook’s project 2021-22, consisting of Zoom meetings, two conferences, and future plans, mainly for the publication of a book series on premodern states. Due to the Covid crisis, the project end-date has been extended to 2027.
History
Jürgen Osterhammel
Through FRIAS fellowships and workshops at FRIAS and an edited volume, Osterhammel’s project will “rethink” the situation of global history, which remains ambiguous an academic subdiscipline after the past 30 years of expansion.
Natural sciences
Dorthe Dahl-Jensen and Johannes (Hans) Oerlemans
The project will employ two postdocs to study ice cores from ice caps near the Arctic Ocean to retrieve proxy records of past ice and climatic conditions. Younger researchers will also engage in workshops and excursions to assess existing data, test glacier models, and formulate a modeling strategy.
Mathematics, physics, and technology
Langer’s research project envisions fellowships for four graduate students from Hong Kong, the USA, and the Middle East to do research in biomaterials for nanomedicine and tissue engineering and organize travel symposia to present results.
Philosophy and Letters
Martha C. Nussbaum
Nussbaum’s Capabilities Approach is the framework for a philosophical and practical exploration of animal rights. Selected scholars in global philosophy and law will contribute articles, present papers at a 2024-25 conference, and produce a final volume.
Arts
Philip V. Bohlman
In a project on sonic encounters in areas of global migration and conflict, young scholars’ research ranging from archival studies to fieldwork with migrant communities will create an interactive digital archive, Musical Topographies of the Borderland.