Research group of prof. Piotr Guzowski from the Faculty of History of the University of Białystok will participate in the Europest projekt entitled „Reunderstanding the Role of Pandemics in Pre-Industrial Europe (1300-1800 CE): History, Life Sciences and Machine Learning”. An international, interdisciplinary team led by prof. Adam Izdebski from the University of Warsaw received the prestigious synergy grant from the European Research Council (ERC).
The project will take six years to complete. Researchers from an international consortium (10 countries from Europe and the United States) whose Polish leader is the University of Warsaw will try to answer the guestion why epidemics caused by the same pathogen in different contexts caused different biological, demographic, social and social effects, cultural in pre- industrial Europe.
Economic historians and historical demographers from the research group of prof. Piotr Guzowski from the Faculty of History of the University of Białystok will participate in the project who will analyze historical sources and nature archives documenting 50 different epidemics from 1300-1800.
The conclusions from this research will be used for machine learning, so a theoretical model will be created making it easier to understand the course of the epidemic in the past but also having potencial applications in the future.
- Participation in the project is the result of many years of cooperation with prof. Adam Izdebski and the Max Planck Institute of Geoanthropology in Jena. Joint research conducted for several years has so far resulted in excellent joint publications (including in „Nature”) and projects thanks to which the community of economic historins and historical demographers in Białystok has become even more recognizable not only in Poland but also internationally. Awarding a grant from the ERC is one of the greatest achievements in the scientific world and our participation in the project is a kind of appreciation in the project of the work and achievements so far – says prof. Piotr Guzowski.
The team received almost EUR 10 million in fouding for the project.
ERC Synergy grants are the largest grants from the European Research Council in financial terms. It was only the second time that they reached Polish scientists.
