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The 2021-22 GYA Sasha Kagansky Interdisciplinary Grant was awarded to Paulina Carmona-Mora (University of California-Davis, USA) and Bernardo Urbani (Venezuelan Institute for Scientific Research), and project co-applicants Sandra López Vergès (Gorgas Memorial Institute for Health Studies, Panama), Iwona Janicka (Aarhus University, Denmark) and Cristina Blanco SÃo-López (Ca’Foscari University of Venice, Italy), for the narrative project: COVID-19 pandemic and the personal experiences of global young researchers.
The project aims to document the struggles of young researchers throughout the COVID-19 pandemic, with a global perspective but also from an internal point of view. The group will create and compile a written testimony of the human facets of experiences in these times of crisis, taken from a diverse group of early to mid-career researchers.
About the GYA Sasha Kagansky Interdisciplinary Grant
The GYA includes a diverse membership of scientists and scholars, in many disciplines, based in low/middle-income and high-income countries. This grant scheme was initiated in 2014, aiming to foster collaboration across the lines that often separate researchers and limit possibilities. Specifically, this scheme facilitates the development of small-scale, innovative, curiosity-driven, blue-sky, exploratory research pilots or prototypes that unite researchers in low/middle-income and high-income countries and cross disciplinary boundaries.
The Sasha Kagansky Interdisciplinary Grant is awarded annually, and is meant to provide seed money to enable GYA members to prepare a proof of concept, prototype, or pilot research project with a view to securing larger external funding. The grant was re-named in 2021 in honor of late GYA member Alexander (Sasha) Kagansky.
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The project aims to compile written testimonies from GYA members and alumni about their personal experiences during the COVID-19 pandemic (2020-22) and publish them in a book and ebook. A key component prior to the writing of the testemonies are live discussions with guiding questions.
As outreach action the projects plans to donate the physical book to libraries in the Global South and to share the e-booklet online, thereby preserving for posterity the experiences and memories of young researchers worldwide during the COVID-19 pandemic.
The final product of this project – the publication of the book “COVID-19 Pandemic Up Close“, compiled by Paulina Carmona-Mora, Bernardo Urbani, Iwona Janicka, Sandra López-Vergès & Delfina D’Alfonso – was launched at the GYA’s 2024 Annual General Meeting, and at the 2024 European Network of Young Academies Meeting. Read more about the book launch here.
After encouraging members to include their testimonies to the book, the activity group hosted two live discussion sessions with members and alumni to guide the writing of the testimonies that will become part of the book. They were able to extract great insights from participants in the live discussions, which will be used for illustration purposes for the book. Furthermore, the group selected an illustrator and identified candidates for a research assistant position. Additionally, they gather testimonies offline, which will also be included in the book.
The second half of the grant period is entirely dedicated to the book organization, design, and creation of a distribution plan.
