UCL professors win EU grants for frontier research
Two UCL academics have been awarded European Research Council (ERC) Advanced Grants worth approximately ¤2.5 million each in recognition of their frontier research and scientific excellence. The Grants will fund ground-breaking work in two very different areas of human geography and modern history: the links between digitalisation and urbanisation in the global south, and the narrative that frames opera as a tool of political nationalism. Professor Ayona Datta (UCL Geography) will lead a project on 'Regional futures', focusing on three rapidly growing metropolitan regions across the global south, which are grappling with the challenges of transforming from 'paper-based bureaucracies' into automated planning and governance systems. Professor Datta said: " This project will have immense impact in our understanding of the politics and dynamics of regional urbanisation in the global south as both a product and a producer of the 'information revolution'. "Digitalisation produces new territories for regional urbanisation and this project will examine how state and non-state actors are assisting, contesting and disrupting these regional futures." Professor Axel Körner (UCL History) is the founding Director of the UCL Centre for Transnational History. He has a particular interest in the history of European opera and will be looking at this art form in relation to empire in Habsburg Europe between 1815 and 1914. Professor Körner said: "We'll be investigating the politics of opera in the Habsburg Empire between the Congress of Vienna and the outbreak of World War One, looking for exchanges between the Empire's different lands and nationalities.
