From COST Action to ERC success: ImpleMendez researchers awarded ERC Synergy Grant
Ente: COST Association - European Cooperation in Science & Technology
Paese: EU
Descrizione
From COST Action to ERC success: ImpleMendez researchers awarded ERC Synergy Grant 01/09/2026 Every year, the European Research Council (ERC) rewards active researchers to foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to combine their expertise, knowledge and resources to push the boundaries of scientific discovery and tackle problems that could not be solved by any single researcher working alone. The ERC calls are highly competitive. Thousands of high-quality proposals are received each year, and only outstanding proposals are likely to be funded. For the 2025 Open Call, the European Research Council awarded €684 million in Synergy Grants to 66 research teams, bringing together 239 scientists to tackle some of the world’s most ambitious scientific challenges across a wide range of disciplines. The COST Action networks are a fertile ground when submitting an ERC grant proposal. ImpleMendez researchers are among the recipients of the prestigious 2025 ERC Synergy Grants , securing funding of €10.4 million to tackle coercive interviewing worldwide for JUSTICE, Joining Unique Strategies Together for Interrogative Coercion Elimination . The six-year project officially kicked off in May 2026 at De Montfort University . Their study will initially assess 100 countries against the Mendez Principles on Effective Interviewing, international guidance that promotes ethical, non-coercive interviewing. Across the world, some people in custody are still questioned in harmful ways: through pressure, intimidation, harsh conditions, or by being denied their rights. These methods can push people into false confessions, lead to unfair prosecutions, and cause lasting harm. JUSTICE will bring together law, psychology, neuroscience, and data science to find out why coercive practices take hold and how to replace them with humane, effective interviewing. The aim is to protect rights, get reliable information, and strengthen public trust. Congratulations to Prof. Yvonne Daly , Prof. Shane O’Mara , Dr Bennett Kleinberg , and Prof. Dave Walsh on being awarded this Synergy Grant to investigate coercive and abusive interrogation practices. We spoke with Prof. Dave Walsh, ImpleMendez COST Action Chair and ERC Synergy Grant awardee, about what this grant means for the team and the role the COST Action played in bringing the collaboration together. What scientific challenge required a Synergy Grant, rather than a single-investigator project? The European Research Council’s Synergy Programme specifically requires a number of investigators, with different sets of expertise to work together to undertake an ambitious programme that examines difficult real-world problems. In the case of the JUSTICE programme we quickly realised that previous examinations of the problem of coercive interrogations had been largely singular in terms of discipline or had been narrow in geographical scope. We also know that the landmark Mendez Principles document that set out the global standard of scientific, legal and ethical base for effective interviewing was a product of work conducted by researchers, practitioners and policy makers from diverse specialisms. As such, it was imperative in trying to establish why coercive interviewing of criminal suspects remains so widespread around the world, in the face of international legal norms, global ethical and moral standards, and the wealth of scientific research that consistently has demonstrated that rapport-based interviewing is more professional, more effective, more ethical and more legal. Moreover, our ambition for JUSTICE was wide reaching with plans to assess compliance with the Mendez Principles in over 100 countries, which needed all our contacts. In what ways has working with researchers from diverse disciplines or perspectives shaped your approach to your field of study? The objectives and ambitions JUSTICE programme needed insights from various disciplines to provide unprecedented comprehensive understandings of the problem of coercive interrogation. I understood from the moment I embarked upon building the research proposal that developing a project from the sole standpoint of my own area of expertise would be insufficient to make any significant inroads into developing the research or indeed making any practical impact. Indeed, such recognition had been further shaped by the experience of the COST Action ImpleMéndez from which I understood not only that other dimensions of knowledge and thought were needed, but particularly which ones were more needed than others. The network of our COST Action possessed many world class researchers from differing disciplines and it was from that network source I was able to make contact with our Action’s members to engage them in the possibility of their joining with me to make an application that extended the COST Action from networking and capacity building to making an impact both in terms of enhancing scientific knowledge but also creating th
Settori: Ricerca scientifica, Networking accademico, Cooperazione europea
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