University researcher wins a prestigious grant

Dr Justyna Olko from UW Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies "Artes Liberales" has been granted – in an international contest – a prestigious Starting Grant, awarded by the European Research Council (ERC) as part of IDEAS scheme. It is a tremendous success both of the researcher and the University – Dr Olko has been the ninth beneficiary from Poland and the fifth UW employee over the history of the grant.

Dr Justyna Olko works as a reader in UW Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies "Artes Liberales" and heads the Laboratory "Meetings between the Old and the New Worlds". Dr Olko specialises in etnohistory and anthropology of Mesoamerica of pre-Columbian and early colonial times as well as in the language study of Nahuatl (Aztec); she is one of few persons in Europe able to read original historical texts written in this language. In 2009 Dr Olko was granted Focus subsidy by the Foundation for Polish Science, which helped her to create a team in Poland studying pre-Hispanic and early colonial world of Nahua Indians as well as the problems of cultural clash of European and Indian worlds.

For Dr Olko’s project the European Research Council will allocate over €1.3 million. The grant will last for 5 years in UW Institute for Interdisciplinary Studies "Artes Liberales" in cooperation with the Spanish Universidad de Sevilla and Instituto de Docencia e Investigación Etnológica de Zacatecas in Mexico. The main objective of the project is to establish an international interdisciplinary research team overcoming environmental, academic and disciplinary barriers. The team will consist of historians, language researchers, linguists and anthroplologists from Poland, Spain, USA and Mexico, including also researchers and students of local origin (Nahua Indians).

The objective of the research is a detailed reconstruction and investigation of the mechanisms of culture transmission between Europe and America in a wide time frame – since 16th century through colonial period up to the present moment. A particularly important element of Dr Olko’s approach is combining historical and modern sources representing European and local perspective. The research will focus, above all, on changes occuring in the contemporary language and culture of Nahua Indians (Aztecs), and, on the other hand, in Spanish language and "Ibero-American" culture developing in the New World. The research is intended to lead to identification and understanding the key factors determining change (such as intensity, time span, type of contact, attitudes and strategies of the groups subject to research) as well as links between a language change and tranformation and continuity in a wider culture. The greatest challenge seems to be finding links between the present culture and dialects of Nahuatl language and their former historical variations.

Established in 2007 the European Research Council (ERC) is the first supranational organisation whose aim is to stimulate, support and finance scientific research in Europe. ERC offers researchers several types of grants: Starting Grants, Advanced Grants, Consolidator Grants and Synergy Grants, as well as grants for the present ERC laureates. The grants are awarded in international contests and anyone wishing to win a grant has to beat a number of strong competitors. Since 2007 the ERC Starting Grant has been awarded to nine Polish young researchers, including 5 UW employees: Prof. Mikołaj Bojańczyk and Prof. Piotr Sankowski as well as Dr Natalia Letki, Dr Stefan Dziembowski and Dr Justyna Olko. So far ERC Advanced Grant has been awarded to three distinguished scientists from Poland, including two UW researchers – Professor Tomasz Dietl (UW and Polish Academy of Sciences) and Andrzej Udalski.

More information on the website of Foundation for Polish Science