It’s so exciting and I am so excited…and I just can’t hide it! I have been awarded an European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grant for my 5-year research project. As I live through music, the first song that came immediately to my mind upon the confirmation of the award have the following lyrics in the first verse: “Maybe I succeeded a little; I jumped up from the floor to the middle; You think I want the credit, I don’t; ‘Cause the glory ain’t made for me; But I know who sits on the throne; Who makes the stage and writes the songs; And I know I couldn’t do this on my own;
And as much as I complain, I’ve seen more sunshine than rain”. The lyrics belong to the song “Not Lucky, I’m Loved” by Jonathan McReynolds. Take a listen below….

The funny, maybe not so funny now, thing is my tweet from last year. This was 2 days after I submittted my application and the ERC announced the total number of 3,474 applications chasing after an expected 387 grants. Thankfully the amount of funding available was increased as you can see in the second image below.

These statistics are partly why the lyrics to the song above perfectly describes how grateful I am to God for his great love and blessing. Yes, Jesus loves me! I thank God for this wonderful open door to have my research idea funded for the next 5 years. I give him all the glory and honour. It is such a humbling privilege to win this grant given the fine margins involved in being (un)successful. I am so thankful to the many colleagues and friends who provided feedback, made suggestions, helped me with making figures and provided encouragement at every stage of the process. It really does take a whole village or two to write a well-developed research proposal and to eventually get awarded a grant to carry out the research.

This awarded ERC Starting Grant Award will fund my project with the acronym FRICTIONS. The aim of FRICTIONS is to unravel the extent to which tourism transforms the past of slavery and colonial heritage and the frictions generated. It also looks at how these frictions are scaled up to provoke shifts in societal narratives about dealing with this shared past in the present. I will build a research team of 3 PhD Candidates and a Postdoc, and together we will address the main research aim through 5 Work Packages that are aligned with 5 main research questions and 5 main corresponding research objectves. FRICTIONS is founded on insights from my NWO funded Veni project that I have been undertaking over the past three years.

A summary of some of the key details of FRICTIONS is provided below:

Frictions of space: the generative tensions of slavery and colonial heritage tourism

I will be shortly recruiting for 3 PhD candidates and a Postdoc to join the team. Keep an eye on this and spread the news of the upcoming vacancies. More details about FRICTIONS will come soon and perhaps a post to reflect on the whole proposal writing, application and interview journey – including the last minute panic with the budget on the day of submission back on 7 November 2023.

Congratulations to all the ERC StG awardees and for those who unfortunately didn’t get awarded I say, very well done to you – I wish you good success in your future grant applications.