ORA: Building a borderless research area in social sciences

The Open Research Area - ORA initiative, the only one of its kind, brings together funding agencies which, like ANR, wish to work together to promote international research in social sciences. Germany, the United States of America, France, the Netherlands and the United Kingdom have adhered to the "ORA Plus" call for proposals which has led to the selection of 15 research projects in social sciences with total funding of €15M. A look back on this flagship initiative.

In order to build a European research area in social sciences, the French national research agency (ANR), the German research foundation (DFG), the Netherlands scientific research organisation (NWO) and the United Kingdom Economic and Social Research Council (ESRC) joined forces a few years ago within the "Open Research Area for the social sciences" scheme, which has been working since 2010 to fund collaborative projects that push back the frontiers of our knowledge of individual and social behaviour and thus have the potential to influence public policies. It enables French, German, British and Dutch researchers to work together and devise the best possible research projects.

Over the last two years, the ORA group, informally known as the “Bonn group” has sought to extend its reach beyond Europe by opening calls for project proposals to non-European countries. As a result of this, a call was launched with India in 2011, with the USA in late 2012 and with China in 2013.

The "ORA Plus" call, organised in partnership with the US National Science Foundation (NSF), has allowed the selection of 15 projects which have just been launched. These multilateral projects led by entirely European consortia or combining American and European teams, concern varied subjects in the areas of psychology, political science, sociology, social anthropology, cultural geography, public administration, demographics, etc. ANR is funding 5 of these projects involving French teams for a total of €1 M.

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