Data fuels the digital economy. This demands training new generations of experts on how data is collected, stored, processed, and analyzed. Corvinus University of Budapest (CUB) is working to become a leading business and economics university in Central and Eastern Europe by combining data science skills with expert knowledge in business and economics. The support of the ERA Chair Program will reinforce institutional reforms at CUB designed to transform it into a hub of research and teaching excellence in applied data science, expanding the international attractiveness of CUB through cutting-edge training programs and innovative industry collaborations. We will establish the new Collective Learning Data Lab (CLDL) with the leadership of Professor César Hidalgo, a world-class researcher in data science, economic geography, and network science. By leveraging synergies with outstanding research groups at CUB, the Collective Learning Data Lab is projected to grow into a leading Center for Data and Network Science. This will create an environment for the university to learn key methods and publish in top interdisciplinary, economics, business, and social science journals. The Lab will be a flagship project involving students in experiential data-driven work. Lab members will engage in advising PhD programs and in developing BA specializations and Master programs in social- and business-oriented data science. The Lab will widen CUB’s industry collaborations with data-oriented companies and public policy use cases. Building on Budapest’s strong tradition in network science, CLDL will impact Hungary and Central and Eastern Europe by equipping society with the skills needed to undertake new challenges.

Food is essential for life but its production causes the overexploitation of natural resources. Customers’ awareness of sustainable food production is only poorly growing. Still, the ecosystem is sending explicit signs requiring an urgent shift towards cleaner food production which also must capture the consumer’s preference because sustainable economic growth is not achievable without significant changes in firms and customers’ behaviour. Digital transformation is pivotal to cleaner production. The most helpful for firms is to exploit the digital data generated by digital technologies about the use of natural resources during food production to reduce environmental impact. Yet, we still lack a clear understanding of how food production firms are exploiting digital data to foster cleaner production innovations and shape the value proposition. FooDization aims to explore how food firms employ digital data to innovate their production process and how cleaner production innovation influence value proposition. An expected contribution is a theoretical framework which (1) will explain how digital data are employed by food firms to make cleaner production innovations; (2) will show how cleaner production innovation affects value proposition; (3) will display the indirect relationship(s) between digital transformation and value proposition. In doing so, FooDization will lead to a new concept, the cleaner value proposition that is defined as an ecological value – created by the exploitation of production digital data – that firms promise to deliver to customers if they buy their cleaner-innovated-products. FooDization’s managerial guidelines might help food firms recognise how cleaner value proposition better attracts new conscious customers. In the food sector, this could help firms achieve competitive advantage by improving not only food production efficiency in the use of natural resources but also create a more sustainable and appealing value proposition for customers.

The aim of the Curriculum Innovation through Research with Communities: Learning circles of Educators and Technology (CIRCLET) project is to strengthen the capacity of higher education, especially educators, to improve learning outcomes for students by redesigning curricula to incorporate Community Engaged Research and Learning (CERL), including using blended and online approaches.The project will support educators to redesign their courses so that students can do curriculum based engaged research projects in response to the expressed needs of community organisations. The project will simultaneously enable students and educators to make a positive impact on society via engaged research projects which respond to community need whilst better linking higher education with research, innovation and real world learning.Project objectives are:- Building educator skills and confidence and reflective capacity for CERL, through both accredited and informal learning and mentoring. This will take place through inter- and intra-institutional learning circles, Learning Teaching Training Activities (LTTAs), and an online Continuing Professional Development (CPD) module;-Redesigning academic curricula to enable more students to do more and higher quality CERL, including increasing the use of online and digital resources;-Disseminate intellectual outputs and activities through project website, multiplier events, conferences, publications and extensive national and international networks of partners and beyond, to increase impact, particularly with educators and those in CERL support roles.The project is based on learning circles. Partner universities will call for proposals from educators who want to redesign their academic courses to include CERL. Educators will be given support to redesign their course and will work with and learn from each other by participating in a cross-university reflective learning circle. Learning circles will connect transnationally via online meetings, and in-person meetings at two LTTAs where educators will be encouraged to collaborate on transnational publications as a professional development activity. The CPD module cohort will form another transnational learning circle, using e-learning platforms and digital resources to support high quality interactions. Reflection will be embedded into all these learning circles to maximise impact.The project will build on the skills and experiences of five university partners, including three research intensive universities from Belgium, Hungary and the UK; a newly established Technical University from Ireland; and an established internet centred open university from Spain. All partners work with local community organisations to develop research topics and then provide a brokerage service to academics and students across disciplines to support them to do this research in the curriculum, mainly via Science Shops (See: www.livingknowledge.org). The project includes both established CERL partners and relative newcomers, from both academic and non academic backgrounds. Partners also bring expertise in a range of areas relevant to the project objectives, e.g. learning circles (HU), policy (UK), CERL resources (IE), science communication (BE), and e-learning and digital expertise (ES); and deep connections to local and global networks.Building on the core activity of redesigning courses via national and transnational learning circles, the project will produce a series of resources for educators in the digital era. These include Guidelines to support educators to redesign their modules to incorporate CERL (IO1), Examples of local CERL practices (IO2), Learning circles to redesign curricula for CERL (IO3); an online CPD module on embedding CERL in curricula (IO4); Interactive CERL resources (IO5).In order to spread practice more widely, partners will support educators to develop transnational peer reviewed papers, and will submit proposals to relevant conferences. Partners will also use their extensive national and international networks to both ensure the usefulness of intellectual outputs and to share them widely.This project approach benefits local communities and universities whilst increasing capacity for CERL amongst educators and students. Outcomes will include at least 30 revised academic modules and 50 upskilled educators. During the project, over 1000 students across Europe will actively engage with society and improve their competences and employability. Society will benefit via the production of relevant research for at least 30 community partner organisations, thereby furthering the goals of these local communities and disadvantaged groups. Innovative practices will be developed within the partner universities which will create a culture more supportive of CERL.The long term impact will be enabling many more educators and students to do more and higher quality curriculum-based projects with communities in the future across Europe.

The aim of FATIGUE is to develop theoretically and empirically robust explanations for the causes and consequences of rise of illiberalism and authoritarianism in post-communist Europe (and Europe, more generally) with reference to the concept of 'delayed transformational fatigue'. The project will seek to answer the following questions: i. Why do illiberal political discourses resonate with people in post-communist Europe? ii. With which types of people do illiberal discourses particularly resonate? iii. Under which social, economic and political circumstances are illiberal discourses most likely to gain traction? iv. How do illiberal political actors make their views of the world hegemonic? Which social, political and economic conditions of possibility enable such hegemonic worldviews to dominate political discourse? v. Which framing activities are employed by cultural-political entrepreneurs via specific media and educational institutions to make their views of the world hegemonic? vi. What are the remedies to the current illiberalism? What role does education play in making society aware of the dangers of playing with right-wing ideas. The research programme will be organised in five work packages, each centred on a research theme pertinent to one or more post-communist EU member-states, accession states or states in the EU’s Eastern Partnership. A sub-team, composed of three partners, will lead the work on each of the five dimensions of the delayed transformational fatigue: WP1: Illiberal democracy and right-wing politics WP2: Politics of memory and transitional justice WP3: Economic populism and inequality WP4: Cultures of reaction: xenophobia, anti-Semitism, anti-migrant WP5: Civil society and protest movements