Research
European Sustainable Cities and Communities
Acronym: ESCC
Program: ENLIGHT (Incubator Grants, Strand B: Joint innovative education initiatives)
Project coordinator (organization): University of the Basque Country (EHU)
Project partners: Comenius University in Bratislava, Uppsala University, University of Groningen, University of Bern
FSES UK Institute implementing the project: Institute of Social Anthropology
Principal Investigator from FSES UK: prof. Mgr. Juraj Buzalka, M. A., PhD
Implementation period (from- until, day, month, year): 1.9.2026 - 31.10.2027
Funding for FSES UK: 2300 euros
Abstract:
Together with the University of the Basque Country, Uppsala University and Groningen University, the Comenius University is involved in investigating the development of a Blended Intensive Course European Sustainable Cities and Communities. A core objective of the initiative is to promote nature-based urban solutions and to equip students with the theoretical and practical skills needed to design and implement them. These include the planning and development of urban green zones, green infrastructure, and ecosystem-based adaptation strategies that enhance biodiversity, improve quality of life, and increase urban resilience to climate change. A core objective of the initiative is to promote nature-based solutions and to equip students with the theoretical and practical skills needed to design and implement them. These include the planning and development of green zones, green infrastructure, and ecosystem-based adaptation strategies and policies that enhance biodiversity, improve quality of life, and increase urban resilience to climate change.
Designing the Education of Future proof sustainability leaders: Collaboration for innovative tools and courses on Smart Sustainable Cities and Communities (DEF-SSCC)
Acronym: DEF-SSCC
Programme: ENLIGHT Future-proof Incubator Grants
Project coordinator: University of the Basque Country
Project partners: Uppsala University, University of Groningen, Comenius University Bratislava
FSES UK Institute implementing the project: Institute of Social Anthropology, Institute of European Studies and International Relations
Principal Investigator from FSES UK: prof. Mgr. M. A. Juraj Buzalka, PhD.; Mgr. Andrea Figulová, PhD.
Implementation period: November 2024 – October 2026
Funding for FSES UK: 5000 eur
Abstract:
Together with the University of the Basque Country, Uppsala University and Groningen University, the Comenius University is involved in investigating the development of a joint degree bachelor program on Smart and Sustainable Cities and Communities. The project outputs include three developed Blended Intensive Program courses and concrete advice on the feasibility and possible pathways to develop a joined bachelor degree.
Narratives of an Integrative Common European Culture: Inclusion, Exclusion, Ideals, Realities
Acronym: EU-CULTURE
Programme: ENLIGHT Thematic Networks – support from CU for not selected projects
Project coordinator: University of Groningen
Project partners: University of the Basque Country, University of Tartu, FSEV UK
FSES UK Institute implementing the project: Institute of Social Anthropology
Principal Investigator from FSES UK: doc. Mgr. M. A. Juraj Buzalka, PhD.
Implementation period: 03/2025 – 06/2026
Funding for FSES UK: 2000 eur
Abstract: Within the framework of EU policymaking, assertions of a shared cultural fabric in need of safeguarding have long served as strategic instruments designed to foster citizens’ attachment to the European project. Such cultural rhetoric enables affective resonance that purely economic or institutional arguments often cannot achieve, particularly during periods of instability, such as those presently confronting the Union. Conversely, calls to defend “European culture” have been appropriated with growing intensity by populist radical right actors and nationalist or nativist movements, which deploy such claims to legitimize exclusionary and racist political programs. References to an shared “heritage,” as well as invocations of Europe’s presumed “identity” and “unity,” feature prominently in these discourses. The historical entanglements of idealized notions of a “European way of life” with colonial propaganda further cast doubt on recent efforts by the European Commission to recalibrate and promote the term anew. The project investigates what constitutes a common “European culture” and how can it be meaningfully conceptualized through existing frameworks of “culture”?
Pan-Ideologies in Central Europe: Paradoxes of Right-Wing Self-Orientalism
Acronym: PANIC
Programme: Horizont Európa – MSCA Postdoctoral Fellowships
Project number/n. of grant agreement: 101061661
Project coordinator (organization): Faculty of social and economic sciences Comenius University in Bratislava
Project partners:
FSES UK Institute implementing the project: Institute of Social Anthropology
Principal Investigator from FSES UK: Juraj Buzalka, Tatyana Safonova
Other investigators from FSES UK (if relevant):
Implementation period (from- until, day, month, year): 01.09.2023 – 31.08.2025
Funding for FSES UK: 165 059,52 eur
Abstract: Turanism and Pan-Slavism have re-emerged alongside far-right ideologies in Hungary and Slovakia, respectively. As these pan-ideologies advocate racism and self-orientalism, a comparative and historical study will reveal why they are rooted in obsolete pseudo-scientific theories shared by right-wing populists. Funded by the Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions programme, the PANIC project will combine social anthropology and history to understand how modern adaptations of pan-ideologies differ from the original versions of the first half of the 20th century and how these transformations correspond to the goals and resources of the ideologues. The project will innovate by suggesting viewing right-wing ideologies as phenomena embedded in the colonial and postcolonial history of the region.
"Funded by the European Union. Views and opinions expressed are however those of the author(s) only and do not necessarily reflect those of the European Union or European Research Executive Agency (REA). Neither the European Union nor the granting authority can be held responsible for them.”
ERASMUS-JMO-2021-CHAIR project 101048187 POSTGREEN - The Post-socialist Societies and Culture under Green Deal
Programme: Erasmus+ Jean Monnet Actions
Call: ERASMUS-JMO-2021-HEI-TCH-RSCH
Topic: ERASMUS-JMO-2021-CHAIR
Project number: 101048187
Title: The Post-socialist Societies and Culture under Green Deal
Akronym: POSTGREEN
Principal Investigator: Juraj Buzalka
Implementation period: 01.10.2022 – 30.09.2025
The objective of the project The Post-socialist Societies and Cultures under Green Deal (POSTGREEN) is to investigate, teach, and disseminate knowledge on the opportunities for the Green Deal to offer new ways for social and economic inclusion and innovation, especially in the post-socialist countries of the European Union ‘from bellow’, i. e. from the perspective of societies and cultures that are subjects of the green deal transformation. In order to make the upcoming European Green Deal successful, obstacles and stimulators of possible green transformation need to be identified, taking into account the legacies of state socialist modernisation and post-socialist transformation. The three year project intends to help students in understanding the way people in post-socialist European Union themselves imagine, practice and understand an environmentally conscious and technologically novel way of life and whether they endorse or reject the ideologies of progressive transformation. This bottom-up perspective needs to go along with and complement the top-down implementation and monitoring of future Green Deal policies. There is a threefold need about investigating, teaching, and disseminating knowledge on European Green Deal from bellow. The first is the legacy of transformations for and in the adoption of progressive policies. The second is the potential for alternative regional innovations under the (in)security of the upcoming Green Deal transformation. And the third issue arises out of “European society” and its demos, its eventual deepening and/or fragmentation.
The project is implemented by Institute of Social Anthropology of FSES CU in collaboration with Institute of European Studies and International Relations of FSES CU.
