Professor Maria Baghramian is a Full Professor of American Philosophy at UCD School of Philosophy. A world expert in her field, she is the only academic from Ireland elected to the Philosophy, Theology and Religious Studies section of the Academia Europaea. She presently sits on three European working groups on the topics of truth, trust and science. 

She was awarded €2,994,596 for her Horizon 2020 research and innovation project Policy, Expertise and Trust in Action (PEriTiA) (2020-2023). This project brings together an international consortium of philosophers, social and natural scientists, policy experts, ethicists, psychologists, media specialists and civil society organisations to investigate the question of trust in experts.

Developing the Project

How did the PEriTiA project come about?

“The starting point of PEriTiA was the interdisciplinary research project ‘When Experts Disagree’ (WEXD) funded by the Irish Research Council (IRC). Professor Luke Drury, an astrophysicist from the Dublin Institute for Advanced Studies, and I investigated the nature and consequence of disagreement in science, focusing particularly on climate science and comparing it to astrophysics. 

As our project progressed, it became clear that trust among scientists, and between scientists and non-scientists, played a crucial role in addressing various instances of disagreement. So the final academic event of WEXD, an international large-scale conference held in UCD in September 2017, focused on the question of trust in the context of expertise and policy and disagreement. Among the keynote speakers of the conference were Baroness Onora O’Neill and Professor Susan Owens, who later were to act as advisers to PEriTiA.  

The conference was the occasion for receiving an invitation from the British Academy and All European Academies (ALLEA) to join a working group on Truth, Trust and Expertise (TTE), co-chaired by Baroness O’Neill. Luke Drury and speakers from the UCD conference including Professor Owens and Professor Gloria Origgi also joined as core members. 

TTE began its work in 2017, soon after Michael Gove had claimed that “the British people have had enough of the experts”, the Oxford English Dictionary had designated “post-truth” as the word of the year and Donald Trump had announced that “I’ve always wanted to say this…The experts are terrible”. There was a sense in academia, one that has not yet abated, that the very idea of truth and knowledge were under attack and that some concrete counter-measures were needed. Our response, to what has been seen as a crisis of both truth and trust, was to convene a number of workshops and to produce three working papers on themes of trust and trustworthiness in science and the role of social media in enhancing or undermining truth.”

How did you find out about the trust in governance call topic? 

“The EU Commission published a draft work programme for 2018/2019 Horizon 2020 funding stream on Societal Challenge Six – Europe in a changing world; Inclusive, innovative and reflective societies in the Summer of 2016. The IRC invited Luke Drury and I to a focus group meeting to discuss submissions and comments on the draft with the hope to shape the call according to our research interests. The topic of Trust in Governance was already in the Programme, but Trust in experts and science was not. Luke Drury and I proposed the addition of this variety of trust to IRC. The proposal was welcomed and found its way, quite briefly, into the final wording of the Commission’s work programme.” 

Why did you look to European funding?

“The IRC New Horizons call was one of the few opportunities for receiving funding for genuinely interdisciplinary work across STEM and humanities subjects, something that had interested Professor Drury and I for a number of years. One of the conditions of the application was commitment to use the project as the starting point of a Horizon 2020 application. 

The commitment to the IRC motivated us to investigate the possibilities of European funding. Initially we had assumed that we would contribute to a science-based project, in the area of climate change. But our membership of TTE and the renewed interest in questions of expertise and trust changed our thinking about the ways in which WEXD could participate in a stream of the Horizon 2020 programme.” 

Tell me about your experience developing and writing the proposal.

“The most challenging aspect of developing the proposal was to ensure that the project description would strictly follow the wording as well as the spirit of the call, and also meet the requirement of multidisciplinarity. I followed the advice to address every single word of the call on Trust in Governance, a strategy that was both challenging and intellectually rewarding as in the process I came to learn about a number of areas outside of my own areas of expertise, including behavioural economics and the experimental measures it uses.” 

What EU networks formed the building blocks for this consortium, how did you develop these networks?

“‘When Experts Disagree’ gave me the necessary resources to investigate and establish connections with potential partners. Many potential partners were invited to one or more of the four workshops and the closing conference we organised. Some preliminary discussions regarding partnership for Horizon 2020 were undertaken early on. The most crucial building block of the consortium came from the Trust conference in UCD and the subsequent ALLEA/British Academy TTE working group.”

How did you develop the consortium for the project?

“A great deal of the work took place during the three workshops organised by the TTE Working Group as well as one-to-one correspondence with each of the potential members of the consortium. The first formal step was to develop a short, one-page proposal based on the Commission’s call which was then discussed at a meeting of a TTE workshop in Amsterdam in September 2017. The consortium also held a one-day meeting in UCD in February 2019 where the goals of the project and the expected contribution from each member was discussed at great length.” 

Resources and Support

What role did national funding play in the success of the proposal?

“The funding from IRC was essential for making this particular project possible. It supported interdisciplinary research, it gave me buyout time from my other duties in UCD to pursue an innovative stream of research. It also provided me with the opportunity to organise conferences and workshops which, in addition to their intrinsic academic merit, became the occasion for developing PEriTiA. 

I also received timely and extremely helpful financial support from Enterprise Ireland which enabled me to receive assistance towards my teaching during the very hectic period of completing the application.”  

What supports did you receive from the UCD EU Research Office?

“The UCD EU Research Office was involved in the development of PEriTiA from the outset. Dipti Pandya was central in encouraging me to act as the coordinator for the application and assured me that UCD would be an ideal host as the lead institute for such an ambitious project. Most importantly the EU Research Office assigned Jenny Knell as project administrator early on and enabled her to participate in the TTE meetings in Bulgaria and the Netherlands where the more advanced planning for the project took place. 

Aine Moore, as well as Jenny, played a central role in the writing phase of the project and worked through and commented on various drafts of the application. They were also responsible for putting together the lengthy technical sections of the project, compiling a budget and handling the legal requirements of the application and post award contractual negotiations. Without the UCD Research support, neither the application nor the activation of the project would have been possible.” 

Advice for Researchers

Is there anything that you would / wouldn't do again?

“I began the work with the consortium and on the application when I was the Head of the School of Philosophy and while I was committed to co-authoring a 300-page monograph. In an ideal world I would have postponed the work on the application by two years, but this was not possible as the specific theme of the call may not have come up again. I also felt that I could not step back from my commitments to my colleagues in UCD and overseas at that late stage. I should have taken three months off from my other duties to focus on writing the application rather than juggling three major commitments working 16-18 hours a day.” 

What advice would you give to others on how to become networked in the EU?

“I think the best way for networking is to go to conferences and workshops and, even more importantly, to organise as many as you can in UCD. The advantage of being a conference organiser is that you can choose the speakers and bring people over to assess their potential for future collaboration. 

Over the last 10 years, it has also become possible to join research networks and reading groups through social media channels, Facebook in particular. The trend has been amplified because of the pandemic and the introduction of Zoom as a constant companion to our academic life.  I think pre-existing academic connections and a track record of some collaboration, if at all possible, is the best assurance for good teamwork for the duration of a large EU project.”  

What advice would you give to others interested in H2020/HE collaborative bids?

“Personally, I am finding the work on this project enjoyable and rewarding because I am working with colleagues whose work I already knew and for whom I have a great deal of respect. I think planning well in advance and putting some thought into creating the right consortium with reliable partners whose work is known to you and who have proven good collaborators can make the difference between a positive and a stressful experience. 

Having efficient and appropriate administrative and technical backing is essential. I have been extremely lucky in that respect, but I would advise those interested to ensure that they have adequate support before deciding to coordinate a large project. It is also important to factor enough buy out time for the work involved. Projects and the role of their co-ordinators vary a great deal, but, at least in my case, the demands of the coordination come very close to 100% of my normal working hours.”  

Benefits and Challenges

What are the main benefits/challenges of coordinating an international project?

“Learning from researchers in various fields about topics that are of great interest to me is the most significant benefit I have received. The coordinator’s role, at least in this particular instance, can also give greater pan European and international visibility to the co-ordinators and open up new career possibilities for them. 

The main challenge is to deal with the unanticipated events as they come up, for instance members of the consortium moving to posts in other universities. Ill health and other personal circumstances can also make collaboration difficult. Of course, a global pandemic has forced us to rethink our planned in person conferences and meetings. But none of these challenges has so far proven insurmountable, and the work is progressing on time and largely in line with the original schedule.” 

Trust is a very topical subject area, where to next?

“I began thinking about a project on experts and the question of trust in 2016. The world has changed greatly since then. The changes, sadly, have given greater urgency to this project. Two points have crystallised for me. First, at a social level, I think we need to be more sensitive to the connections between the grievances that give rise to populist politics and the rejection of expertise. 

Second, I think we should aim for a better understanding of the barriers to genuine knowledge and try to go beyond platitudes in discussing “fake news”, “alternative facts” etc. The project does investigate the affective or emotional features of trust, but I think we should also take a closer and more critical look at our assumptions about the boundaries separating the rational from the irrational, for instance by examining how discredited scientific views as well as conspiracy theories about science take hold.”