ERC Consolidator Grant

The European Research Council (ERC) supports frontier research, cross disciplinary proposals and pioneering ideas in new and emerging fields which introduce unconventional and innovative approaches. The ERC’s mission is to encourage the highest quality research in Europe through competitive funding and to support investigator-driven frontier research across all fields of research, on the basis of scientific excellence.
ERC Consolidator Grants are designed to support researchers at the stage at which they are consolidating their own independent research team or programme. The scheme will strengthen independent and excellent new individual research teams that have been recently created.

Host Institution

Utrecht University is one of Europe’s leading research universities, recognised internationally for its high quality and innovative approach to both research and teaching. Founded in 1636, the University has always focused strongly on research. Owing to its solid grounding in discipline-based scholarship, Utrecht University is at the forefront of developments in interdisciplinary knowledge. The University participates in various thematic multidisciplinary collaborations that conduct excellent research. With its prominence in teaching and research, Utrecht University works towards finding solutions of the highest possible impact and significance to the major challenges facing the 21st century.

Faculty and department

The Faculty of Humanities has around 7,000 students and 900 staff members. With its research and education in these fields, the Faculty aims to contribute to a better understanding of the Netherlands and Europe in a rapidly changing social and cultural context. The enthusiastic and highly motivated colleagues and the excellent facilities in the historic city centre of Utrecht, where the Faculty is located, provide a stimulating professional atmosphere.

The Department of Media and Culture Studies provides education on and carries out research in the fields of film, television, games, new media and digital culture, theatre, dance and performance, gender and ethnicity, music and cultural policies. Culture is a dynamic mix of artistic, creative and everyday practices with which people shape their identities and actions, and within which societal structures and institutions take shape. Media (old and new) are crucial factors in these processes.
The department is the home base for all the lecturers who teach in the Bachelor’s programmes Media en Cultuur and Muziekwetenschap. They also teach in the various Master’s programmes, including Film- en Televisiewetenschap, Muziekwetenschap andKunstbeleid- en management and the English-language programmes Gender Studies,Gender and Ethnicity, Media and Performance Studies, Musicology, New Media & Digital Culture, and Theatre Studies.

The scholars in media and culture studies from the various research groups often work together to explore issues surrounding different facets of the role played by art, culture, and media in present-day society. The research focuses on a broad range of media and cultural and artistic performances, which are studied within their intermedial context. We pay particular attention to the relation between historical and contemporary developments, transmedial and intermedial phenomena, cultural diversity, emancipation, heritage and the digital humanities.

Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON)

The Institute for Cultural Inquiry (ICON) is one of the four research institutes of the Faculty of Humanities. The researchers from the departments of History and Art History, Languages, Literature and Communication and Media and Culture Studies who belong to ICON are organised in the research groups Gender Studies, Literature, Media and Performance, Medieval Culture and Musicology

The members of these research groups often work together to explore issues concerning different facets of the role played by art, culture, and media in present-day society. Through their interdisciplinary projects, they contribute towards the university’s focus area Cultures, Citizenship and Human Rights and the strategic theme Institutions for Open Societies, among others.

ICON scholars are also members of national research schools and are active in numerous international partnerships and networks in their various disciplines. Collaboration with other partners within society is also a key priority for ICON.
Graduate Gender Programme (GGeP) 

Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG)

The Netherlands Research School of Gender Studies (NOG) at Utrecht University (The Netherlands) provides a platform for gender sensitive and postcolonial research. Since 1995, the NOG  has offered a highly successful training programme and research environment for postgraduate students, PhD students and senior researchers. The NOG teaching and research staff consists of an international team of professors and senior lecturers from various universities.

The NOG is a top European programme and plays a central role in European cooperation on research and training in the area of Gender and Postcolonial studies.