Professor Das awarded ERC grant for TRACTION project

Professor Nandini Das (Tutorial Fellow in English at Exeter College) has been awarded a European Research Council Proof of Concept grant for her project TRACTION: Teaching Race, Belonging, Empire and Migration.

The new venture is an offshoot of Professor Das’ current European Research Council funded project, TIDE (www.tideproject.uk), which explores travel, transculturality and identity in England in the 16th and 17th centuries.

TRACTION is a digital platform which provides professional development courses for secondary school teachers on the teaching of race, identity, empire, and migration. The project seems particularly relevant at a time when the integration of colonial history and racial relations is an increasingly important debate. TRACTION plans to be an inter-subject scheme with a dual focus on skills-training and community-building.

The £150,000 Proof of Concept grants are designed to translate cutting-edge research into social enterprises that will have positive and long lasting socio-economic impacts. This year they were awarded to 55 researchers, principally in technology and science commercialisation research. Professor Das is one of the only recipients of the grant in the humanities sector.

Read more about Professor Das’ work here: Exeter Fellow Nandini Das directs new research project, the TIDE salon