Dr Nikhil Sengupta, a Social and Organisational psychologist at the School of Psychology, has been awarded a European Research Council Starting Grant of 2.47 million Euros for a five-year project investigating opinions on key social issues such as inequality, immigration and international relations in the UK.
The project will focus on how these opinions change over time, in a large, representative sample of the British population. It will also survey students across a selection of secondary schools over the same period, to understand how adolescents first develop their social and political opinions.
The findings will provide a wealth of information for both policymakers and the general public, by revealing what people in the UK think about the most pressing issues in society today. It will help stakeholders at all levels of UK society understand the connection between what people want and need, and social structures and institutions that either facilitate or frustrate those needs.
The funding will enable Dr Sengupta to recruit and lead a team of postdoctoral researchers and PhD students to study these issues.
When studying his PhD at the University of Auckland, Dr Sengupta worked on the New Zealand Attitudes and Values Study (NZAVS) which provides a model to demonstrate how valuable a social-psychological survey project can be for understanding a changing society over time. The NZAVS has provided crucial insights to the public and policymakers relevant to contemporary issues in New Zealand – such as feelings towards Muslims in the wake of the Christchurch Terror Attack and national wellbeing during the COVID-19 lockdown. This project has the potential to provide similar insights for UK society over the next five years.
Dr Sengupta said: ‘I am incredibly grateful and humbled to have received this funding from the European Research Council to conduct research that I think has great value for UK society. Our society is currently going through a period of social and political change, which brings a lot of uncertainty. At a time like this, it is crucial to understand how the views of the population on key social issues are changing, what people want from their leaders and social institutions, and how those desires can be translated into policy. This cannot be done without asking people about their attitudes and opinions on a large scale, as well as understanding the priorities and concerns of the next generation of voters. Collecting this kind of data would be impossible without this funding’.
The 2020 European Research Council (ERC) Starting Grants were awarded to four hundred and thirty-six laureates. The total funding is worth in total €677 million and will help early-career scientists and scholars to build their own teams and conduct pioneering research across all disciplines. The grants are part of the EU’s Research and Innovation programme, Horizon.