Social Sciences: ORA Funds 20 Projects in 2015 Call

The ORA Scheme, designed to strengthen international cooperation in the social sciences, has been promoting collaboration between Germany, the Netherlands, the United Kingdom and France since 2010. Four joint calls for proposals, including two expanded to non-EU countries, have been launched under the initiative, whose results for 2015 were recently published. Twenty international projects will be awarded a grant worth €19 M total.

Since 2010, the ORA Scheme – “Open Research Area for the Social Sciences” has brought together the German Research Foundation (DFG), the Netherlands Organisation for Scientific Research (NWO, the Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) and ANR under one heading. ORA aims to strengthen international cooperation in the social sciences while paring down the bureaucratic obstacles and restrictions usually associated with international funding. ORA is characterised by collaborative calls for proposals sometimes including countries outside Europe (four such calls for proposals have been greenlighted since 2010). Notable non-European joint initiatives have been conducted with China, the United States and Japan.

2015 Edition Featuring Japan

The 2015 call for proposals has been expanded to associate Japanese researchers through an agreement with the Japan Society for the Promotion of Science (JSPS). Said researchers benefit from €500,000 in funding awarded to two JSPS-selected projects.

Twenty Projects for the Advancement of Science

Twenty research projects were selected at the outcome of an integrated competitive selection process between partner countries. Projects will be awarded an overall amount of €19 M, enabling academics in Europe and Japan to collaborate on a range of exciting projects aimed at breaking new ground in our understanding of individual and social behaviour and influence policy.

Find out more:

• Details concerning selected projects
• Our page Increasing the visibility of French project-based research