Panagiota Kotsila receives an ERC Consolidator Grant
ICTA-UAB researcher Panagiota Kotsila has received a Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC) to develop the project “Embracing Immigrant Knowledges for Just Climate Health Adaptation” (IMBRACE).
The project IMBRACE will open new paths for research at the nexus of climate, health, and immigration.
The proposal aims to analyze the nexus between climate, health, and immigration, with special attention to the vulnerability factors of migrants in relation to climate change and urban climate adaptation processes in general.
The ERC has announced the 308 winners of its 2023 Consolidator Grants competition. These excellent mid-career researchers are awarded a total of €627 million as part of the European Union Research and Innovation Horizon Europe program.
With grants worth up to €2 million each, they will be able to consolidate their research teams and develop their innovative ideas. To do so, they will employ postdocs, PhD students and other research team members.
Researcher from the Institute of Environmental Science and Technology (ICTA-UAB) Panagiota Kotsila will receive the Consolidator Grant to develop her project titled IMBRACE, a novel, comparative and in-depth study that will open new paths for research at the nexus of climate, health, and immigration.
Climate change, human health and immigration are arguably the most prominent, enduring, and challenging issues of our times, with important implications for justice. Studies on the nexus of these issues have largely focused on climate change as posing challenges to health and thus acting as a push-factor for migration. However, our understanding of how climate is impacting the health of immigrants in their places of destination is still poor.
Understanding potential climate and health inequities is further hampered by the fact that immigrant communities in Europe are far from homogenous and are often racialized groups of great ethnic diversity.
Focusing on 6 case-study cities in Europe, IMBRACE aims to examine the factors that shapes immigrants’ climate health vulnerability and how their knowledge and practices can influence their own coping capacities and urban climate adaptation in general.
The aim is to achieve more effective and just approaches. To this end, the project focuses on the two most relevant climate impacts for urban areas in Europe with important health implications: increased and prolonged heat, and intense rainfall and flooding. Researchers will use a pioneering feminist political ecology approach that combines participatory ethnography, critical discourse and policy analysis, and transdisciplinary knowledge production.
ERC Consolidator Grants are awarded to outstanding researchers of any nationality and age with at least seven and up to 12 years of experience after PhD, and a scientific track record showing great promise. Research must be conducted in a public or private research organization located in one of the EU Member States or Associated Countries. The funding (maximum of €2 million per grant) is provided for up to five years.
The laureates of this grant competition will carry out their projects at universities and research organizations in 22 EU Member States and other countries associated with Horizon Europe. Among the EU countries, the highest numbers of grants will be allocated to researchers in Germany (66 projects), the Netherlands (36), France (23) and Spain (23). Among the winners of this call there are 43 different nationalities, notably Germans (56 researchers), Italians (36) and Dutch (27).