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Authoritarian Threats to Scientific Knowledge

Objective

The growth of scientific knowledge is a towering achievement of humankind, but its societal causes remain underexplored. What makes some societies more fertile for science? AutoKnow will answer this by investigating how authoritarian rule affects scientific knowledge production. Authoritarian regimes are investing heavily in science and democratic backsliding threatens several democracies. How is science affected by authoritarian rule? AutoKnow will address this, elaborating a new theory of 'science and authoritarian rule' explaining how scientific knowledge production is affected by i) authoritarian regimes vs. democracies, ii) authoritarian regime features (e.g. ideology, repression, institutions), and iii) authoritarian politics in backsliding democracies. To test the theory, AutoKnow will compile global data on attacks on science, published scientific output, and (surveys of) social norms relating to science (among scientists), linked to data on authoritarian rule across countries and levels of analysis. The project will study when and why authoritarian rulers launch attacks on scientists, and if authoritarian rule influences scientific norms (among scientists) using survey-data. Crucially, AutoKnow considers the effects of authoritarian rule on the contents of scientific publications, focusing on scientific progress and political influence. AutoKnow will use computational language-model analysis of millions of published scientific abstracts to capture performance dimensions, e.g. scientific disruptiveness and idea novelty, and in the social sciences and humanities, political bias and censorship. These insights will be integrated with state-of-the-art data on authoritarian rule, authoritarian regime features and politics at various levels (e.g. countries and academic institutions). AutoKnow will reveal how authoritarian rule impacts science, helping stakeholders protect scientific progress in the face of authoritarian threats.

Fields of science (EuroSciVoc)

CORDIS classifies projects with EuroSciVoc, a multilingual taxonomy of fields of science, through a semi-automatic process based on NLP techniques. See: The European Science Vocabulary.

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Keywords

Project’s keywords as indicated by the project coordinator. Not to be confused with the EuroSciVoc taxonomy (Fields of science)

Programme(s)

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Topic(s)

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Funding Scheme

Funding scheme (or “Type of Action”) inside a programme with common features. It specifies: the scope of what is funded; the reimbursement rate; specific evaluation criteria to qualify for funding; and the use of simplified forms of costs like lump sums.

HORIZON-ERC - HORIZON ERC Grants

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Call for proposal

Procedure for inviting applicants to submit project proposals, with the aim of receiving EU funding.

(opens in new window) ERC-2025-COG

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Host institution

UNIVERSITETET I OSLO
Net EU contribution

Net EU financial contribution. The sum of money that the participant receives, deducted by the EU contribution to its linked third party. It considers the distribution of the EU financial contribution between direct beneficiaries of the project and other types of participants, like third-party participants.

€ 1 995 821,00
Address
PROBLEMVEIEN 5-7
0313 Oslo
Norway

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Region
Norge Oslo og Viken Oslo
Activity type
Higher or Secondary Education Establishments
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Total cost

The total costs incurred by this organisation to participate in the project, including direct and indirect costs. This amount is a subset of the overall project budget.

€ 1 995 821,00

Beneficiaries (1)

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