Gratama grants for two ICOG research projects

Dr. Werner Distler and Dr. Eske van Gils have both been awarded research grants from the Gratama Foundation. Distler is receiving the grant for his project Hidden Archives of Peace and Conflict, Van Gils for her project on political cooperation between Turkmenistan and the European Union.

About Eske van Gils' project

For several decades, the EU has tried to promote liberal-democratic norms in partner states, though recent years have seen a growing demand from partners for cooperation on more equal normative terms. Political scientist Eske van Gils will look at interaction between the two sides and will explore whether their power dynamics might be changing. With her project, Van Gils aims to gain some more insight into the views of Turkmenistan and the EU on their cooperation, and to understand what issues they want to place on the agenda. make both an empirical and a theoretical contribution. The project will start this summer and will be concluded in July 2024.

About Werner Distler's project

Documents and other relevant sources of knowledge about conflict and war are often kept in remote or private spaces of individual and collective non-state actors (political parties, militias, resistance movements, sources of social movements and non-governmental organizations), or of international personnel participating in United Nations international peacebuilding missions. The lack of access to these important resources is a loss for academic research and for the societies involved.

Werner Distler's project aims to gain more knowledge about working with hidden archives, and to develop measures for access and preservation. His project consists of two parts: on the one hand, he is bringing together academic experts from International Relations, Peace and Conflict Studies, archivists and librarians in an international workshop on the topic of hidden archives. The goal of the workshop is to gain knowledge on both access to hidden archives and preservation of hidden archives.

In addition, a student assistant is conducting a content analysis of a private collection of a former UN official from the UN mission in Kosovo, with the goal of gaining insight into the challenges of working with privately selected material as a methodological model for future work with broader sets of cases of private collections. Distler's project will begin in September 2023 and last four months.

About the Gratama Foundation

The Gratama Foundation works with the Groningen University Fund to provide funding for small-scale academic projects, designed and conducted by the University of Groningen. Every year, researchers of the University of Groningen are invited to apply for a grant from the Gratama Foundation. The maximum amount for a single grant is € 5000 - € 25,000 and the total budget is around € 100,000. More information on procedure and criteria can be found on the Gratama Foundation website.