Identifying knowledge gaps
– The seed funding was absolutely foundational to my ability to develop both the TRG and the ERC project, Nightingale explains. With the funding, her team organized two key workshops that brought together an international and interdisciplinary group of colleagues to explore the core ideas of the TRG UNRULY Sustainability.
– These workshops identified where important knowledge gaps still exist, and they also expanded our thinking by enabling conversations between researchers from very different fields, Nightingale says. The workshops also strengthened collaborations within UiO itself, establishing long-term relationships that continue to shape the project today.
In the UNRULY project funded by the ERC, she will study how society is creating more uncertainties by trying to anticipate the future, in this case by building large energy infrastructure in the Global South (Nepal and Zambia) designed to ensure economic and energy security.
The project aims to develop a new analytical framework that integrates social and material aspects to better understand change and address justice issues.
Freedom to experiment
One of the most valuable aspects of the seed funding, according to Nightingale, was the freedom to experiment.
– The work we are doing is very experimental and challenging. I doubt we could have made much progress with our methodological innovations if we hadn't had the chance to gather our interdisciplinary group, reflect on what we already knew, and just as importantly, identify what we still needed to figure out, she says.
This process of collaborative exploration proved essential when crafting the successful ERC application, helping Nightingale and her team to formulate their innovative approach in a way that was compelling and convincing to the evaluation panel.
Advice for future applicants
For researchers considering applying for seed funding, Nightingale’s advice is clear: use it to cross disciplinary boundaries.
– This money is especially valuable when you use it for what it is meant to do: building novel collaborations across disciplines and testing out new ideas. If you just want seed funding to continue something you already know how to do, then it is perhaps not as valuable. The real value comes when you bring together new people or explore questions that would be difficult to launch otherwise.
Surprising insights
Reflecting on the work so far, Nightingale highlights one particularly surprising insight: how valuable mathematical perspectives on risk and uncertainty have been for her and her qualitative social scientists colleagues.
– This mathematical understanding has really opened up how we approach and think about risk, she says, offering a concrete example of the benefits that emerge when disciplines that don’t typically collaborate come together.
Would you also like to have the freedom to experiment and cross disciplinary boundaries in your research? Apply for seed funding by June 20 here.