From AI to boredom and sex hormones: Eight human science projects put life under the microscope

This year, VELUX FONDEN’s core group programme is awarding grants totalling DKK 41 million to eight very different research projects at the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southern Denmark, Roskilde University and Aarhus University.

01.07.2021 l More news

This year, VELUX FONDEN’s core group programme is awarding grants totalling DKK 41 million to eight very different research projects at the University of Copenhagen, the University of Southern Denmark, Roskilde University and Aarhus University.

About core groups

A core group is a closely collaborating research group, usually with one or two permanent senior researchers as project manager(s), other senior researchers and two or three postdocs and/or PhD students. 

A core group can consist of researchers from the same department or researchers across departments and universities.

How does boredom affect people’s well-being in day-to-day life? How does artificial intelligence (AI) influence communicators’ professional assessments and ethical decisions? And how do our definitions of sex hormones change how we see gender, age, health and sexuality? These questions are explored in three of the research projects that will receive grants from VELUX FONDEN’s core group programme.

“The eight very different projects we’ve selected this year reflect the programme’s key aim: to support independent, original and curiosity-driven research in the human and social sciences at the highest academic level, which generates new insights, theories and approaches. Independent research is crucial to allowing us to develop our democratic society on an informed, inclusive and sustainable basis,” says Henrik Tronier, Head of programme for VELUX FONDEN’s humanities research programme

Shedding light on disaffected state of mind

Every year, VELUX FONDEN invites humanities and social science departments to submit project proposals for the foundation’s core group programme. The research projects are to serve as ‘stepping stones’ for career development and the establishment of research environments, and strengthen the departments’ research strategy development and teaching. All projects receiving grants have been through two independent, international peer assessments in competition with many other applications from a wide range of humanities subject areas.

This year, eight projects made it through the eye of the needle and will receive grants of between DKK 2.5 million and DKK 5.9 million over a four-year period.

One of the projects sheds light on boredom, but is anything but boring. It aims to create a more nuanced understanding of the challenges boredom brings with it, and to develop strategies that individuals can use to tackle boredom. The project will also highlight the destructive potential of boredom by examining its effect on behaviours such as cheating, online trolling and deliberate sharing of fake news.

“It’s generally believed that boredom can be healthy, but it can have serious consequences. A persistent feeling of boredom can be related to depression and anxiety, and the boredom of day-to-day life can change our behaviour – for example when we take our phones out of our pockets the second we’re unsure what to do with ourselves. But in reality we know surprisingly little about boredom. Over the next four years, with the help of the core group grant, we’ll examine how boredom affects people’s well-being and whether it leads to undesirable behaviour. For example, can boredom make us more hostile on the internet?” says Stefan Pfattheicher, Associate Professor at the Department of Psychology and Behavioural Sciences at Aarhus University.

The eight projects: 

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