Diversity in excellent research
We take a closer look at some research funded by the ERC that investigates diversity in society. We look at three themes: the importance of accommodating diversity in health research, diversity from a technological and legal perspective and how we perceive diversity.
Health research
It is paramount that health research considers diversity in its research designs and studies. Participants in health research must reflect the plurality of the population, taking into account ethnicity, gender, age, identity, socio-economic status, etc. If this is not done, it can have serious ethical and medical consequences as it impedes the ability to generalise study results and ensure effective treatment and disease prevention for all.
“Diversity is increasing and becoming important.” says Charles Agyemang, Professor of Global Migration, Ethnicity and Health at Amsterdam University Medical Center in the Netherlands.
If you live in a society, particularly in the urban centers within Europe, where you have about 50% of the population from different ethnic or migrant backgrounds, you need to be able to have the health systems that reflect all those people living in that field.
His studies address the significant changes in migration patterns over the past few decades, emphasising the considerable increase in the global migrant population, which reached approximately 281 million in 2020. While migration brings many advantages, such as contributing to better living standards, socioeconomic development, and substantial remittances, there are also health associated challenges.
Prof Agyemang’s ongoing ERC-funded longitudinal study is on hypertension susceptibility in African migrants. It aims to provide unique insights to the interplay of genes, environment, and lifestyle changes. This contributes to a more nuanced understanding of health outcomes in migrant communities.
“Europe today is becoming a diverse community and we cannot forget about diversity, in research it is a must and you should work towards it.”
Technological and legal perspective
If we look at diversity from a technological and legal perspective, we can find many ERC-funded research projects. For example those inquiring into bias in AI, accessibility of public spaces for people with diverse bodily, mind or life circumstances - as well as research on how technology can assist people with different life experiences and realities.
One such project is “Algorithmic Societies: Ethical Life in the Machine Learning Age”, led by Louise Amoore of Durham University in the UK. Her research explores the ethical implications of living in a society heavily influenced by artificial intelligence.
AI technologies are hugely impacting our society and how we live with one another. A key aspect is what the makeup of that society is, and whether the kinds of technological tools we're using in society are reflective of the diversity and heterogeneity of that society.
Prof. Amoore highlights how diversity, beyond equality or inclusion, is a dynamic concept and practice. In the context of machine learning, particularly generative AI, the meaning of diversity is being redefined, with a call to be vigilant about how machine learning models reshape thinking, research, and practices.
“What we're suggesting is that we need to think quite carefully about actually what are the collaborations and interactions that are happening between human decision makers and these machines that are operating using artificial intelligence.”
Prof. Amoore urges a shift in perspective, suggesting that the impact of artificial intelligence on diversity goes beyond bias mitigation. She proposes a more profound consideration of AI's role in shaping new norms of diversity, calling for ambitious responses in terms of politics, ethics, and responsibility. She advocates for the humanities and social sciences to not only identify but actively shape alternative futures in the face of AI's impact on society.
How we perceive diversity
Finally, we focus on how we perceive diversity and the relativity of the concept of ‘diversity’ versus ‘normality’. This can include research on gender identities, norms and sexual orientation, neurodiversity as well as anthropological, sociological and social-psychological studies on of how people react to diversity and how to include diversity into research design.
Ana Cristina Santos leads the project TRACE - “Tracing Queer Citizenship over Time: Ageing, ageism and age-related LGBTI+ politics in Europe”, at the Centre for Social Studies, University of Coimbra, in Portugal.
We need to take into account that people are never just one thing, that we are made of layers and different experiences, different belongings, multiple belongings. Therefore, when we're conducting research with humans, we need to take into account all of these different layers and aspects of one's identity.
The aim of her ERC-funded project “TRACE” is to explore queer citizenship over time and address key issues such as aging, ageism, and LGBTI+ related politics in Southern Europe. The focus is on analysing the life experiences of older LGBTI+ individuals who have lived through pivotal historical changes, from facing criminalisation to dealing with the AIDS crisis and finally witnessing the recognition of formal rights.
Ana Cristina Santos’s work explores the intricate terrain of lived experiences, narratives and perceptions, unveiling the multifaceted aspects of queer citizenship. It emphasises the triumphs and challenges faced by older LGBTI+ individuals and underscores the enduring significance of their embodied memories for informing inclusive policies on diversity, sexuality, and aging.
If you would like to hear more from these researchers, you can watch them presenting their work during a recent ERC conference. These three research projects are however but a taste of the wide variety of research into diversity that is funded by the ERC – you can find out more from our Frontier research into Diversity Factsheet.