The purpose of the call is to grant funding for the implementation of applied, interdisciplinary projects centered on the following issues:
- The water cycle in Spain: uses and management
Water scarcity has become a key global challenge in these times of climate change. One that affects the availability and efficient management of resources, cost and infrastructure optimization, water quality to protect public health and the environment, and even cybersecurity, given that water management systems are critical infrastructures.
A comparative analysis of the situation in Spain and other countries may be served by contributions from diverse knowledge areas, including Environmental Sciences, Engineering, Economics, Law, Public Health and Information and Communication Technologies.
- Conservative of critical ecosystems in Spain
Forest fires, droughts, soil erosion and desertification, pollution, overexploitation, and demographic and urban pressures are some of the main threats facing Spain’s ecosystems, as climate change impacts make themselves felt.
Projects addressing these problems may incorporate the scientific perspective of fields ranging from Environmental to Social Sciences, in tandem with the prism brought by the managers of public agencies and conservationist organizations.
- Artificial intelligence values, regulation and applications
New-generation artificial intelligence, with convergent advances that mark a radical departure from the developments of two decades back, is now being rolled out across multiple fields, some of them critical, with at times significant performance advantages over human processors in the areas of data analysis and pattern recognition. Generative AI is a disruptive technology with potentially positive systemic effects, as well as significant risks, motivating regulatory efforts of dubious efficacy.
In fields like Philosophy, Law, Decision Theory, Computer Science, AI itself, Cognitive Science and certain subsets of Statistics, the meaning and scope of massive AI deployment has become an object of debate, particularly in areas of systemic impact. The projects submitted under this call should be interdisciplinary, and start from a thoroughgoing knowledge of the state of the art in AI.
- Digitalization and mobile devices in education
The digitalization of the classroom, once viewed as an important teaching improvement, is now subject to doubts and ambivalence in view of its possible linkage with low performance, learning difficulties, delayed language acquisition and concentration deficit. Various countries and educational models are considering retracing the path of digitalization, but there is a lack of scientific evidence on the real impact of digital devices and on the conditions and terms that should properly govern their use.
This issue can be broached from disciplines like Cognitive Psychology, Neuroscience or Biomedicine, Legal Sciences, Economics, Sociology and Educational Sciences, ICT, Basic Sciences, Data Science and Social Work.
- Educational models and outcomes
Measuring the outcomes of different educational models, especially at non-university levels, is an essential means to identify the strengths and weaknesses of pedagogical models and approaches, the provision and efficiency of educational resources, the identification of best practices, and the performance contribution of factors such as family and social background.
- Young people: employability, access to housing and interpersonal relations
Young Spaniards’ socioeconomic situation, characterized by high unemployment, job insecurity and difficulty finding affordable housing, even rented accommodation, has pushed back the age of leaving home.
Further, new ways of relating through technology and social media have brought with them generational changes whose effects, both positive and adverse, merit deeper analysis from the standpoint of a wide range of social-scientific disciplines.
- Gender-based violence: comparative analysis
Policy advances and increased social awareness have failed to curb cases of gender violence, unquestionably one of the most important social issues of the 21st century. It is of special analytical and practical interest to compare the situation of Spain with that of other European countries.
In this call, particular value will be set on comparative, interdisciplinary analyses and contributions from the academic world, as well as from social workers and other specialists from public agencies engaged in combating gender-based violence.
- Democracy and the rule of law in Europe
In advanced societies, democracy and the rule of law are interrelated institutional pillars, associated in Europe with the welfare state. Now, however, these pillars are being eroded by a series of factors and variables, including ideological and party polarization, the disinformation and emotional contagion facilitated by social media, confrontational leadership styles, the weakness of mainstream media, changes in the structure of the middle class, and campaigns to discredit institutions like parliament and the judiciary, as well as the weakening of axiological neutrality in the recruitment and practice of the administrative apparatus.
The Prisms & Problems call will privilege analysis of this phenomenon from an empirical, comparative and interdisciplinary standpoint by teams made up of specialists in Legal Sciences, Political Science, Sociology, Social Psychology, Philosophy and Information Sciences, amongst others.
