AUA Receives EU Grant for Center for Ethics in Public Affairs (ETICA)

YEREVAN — The American University of Armenia (AUA) is pleased to announce that it has recently received a grant of 2.5 million Euros from Horizon Europe’s highly coveted and prestigious European Research Area (ERA) Chair competitive funding to establish a Center for Ethics in Public Affairs (ETICA). To date, Armenia is the first country in the South Caucasus to receive such ERA Chair grants. The first ERA Chair award in Armenia was granted in November 2022 to Dr. Narine Sarvazyan, William Frazer Endowed Professor at AUA, whose Chair was hosted at Yerevan’s Orbeli Institute of Physiology.

The Center will be established and directed by ERA Chair Dr. Maria Baghramian, professor of philosophy at University College Dublin and the University of Oslo. ETICA will be based at AUA’s Turpanjian Institute of Social Sciences (TISS), with Assistant Professor Dr. Arshak Balayan acting as principal investigator and deputy director.

The core mission of the grant is to create a comprehensive ecosystem of research, training, and outreach on pressing ethical issues in the public domain in Armenia. The Center will be the first of its kind in the Republic of Armenia and pioneering in its breadth and scope in the region. AUA has committed to continue operating the Center beyond 2030 and to hire a successor to Dr. Baghramian after her five-year term as director.

ETICA is based on four academic pillars: Research & Internationalization, Teaching & Training, Public Outreach, and Structural Reforms in Higher Education. The project’s ultimate goal is to establish ETICA as a national and international hub for excellent research, training, and outreach in ethics in the public and professional arenas. To this end, the Center will hold regular international conferences and workshops, publish peer-reviewed articles, create teaching resources and opportunities in English and Armenian, and engage the Armenian public, including youth, in deliberations on key ethical issues. The project also aims to introduce measures to support researchers at AUA and other Armenian higher education institutions to achieve further success with Horizon Europe funding applications and project management.

“There has never been a better time to emphasize the importance of ethics in Armenia’s public domain,” said AUA President Dr. Bruce Boghosian. “Armenia is courageously forging a new social contract based on democratic principles, while simultaneously tackling very 21st-century problems, including climate change, environmental stewardship, the rise of artificial intelligence, and the abuse of data to proliferate misinformation. To my mind, these efforts, undertaken in the face of so much adversity, exemplify the very best ethical behavior of which humanity is capable. I hope this grant will help build appreciation of this unique moment in history and Armenia’s role at the epicenter of this struggle.”

We asked Dr. Baghramian to expand on the grant application process, goals for the implementation of this grant, and more.

Can you please tell us about the process of applying for this grant?

The funding for ETICA is made possible through the Horizon Europe Widening Area scheme and its ERA Chair competitive call. The application process involves collaboration between a host university, in this case AUA, and an internationally recognized academic expert, with the aim to create a Center of Excellence relevant to both the strategic and academic needs of the host institution and country and the research and leadership achievements of the proposed ERA Chair.

Like any successful Horizon application, the process involved several rounds of preliminary negotiations and consultation with AUA over the past three years, followed by an intense and highly focused period of work on a 32-page application, which had to meet the rigorous demands of this competitive Horizon Europe Call. The application was also supported by Armenia’s Scientific and Innovation Partnership Assistance Center (SIPAC), which provides valuable information and assistance with Horizon projects in Armenia.

What was the motivation behind applying for the grant? 

Over the past decade or so, together with other Armenian philosophers in the Diaspora and in Armenia — such as Dr. Paul Boghossian, Silver Professor of Philosophy at New York University, and Dr. Balayan — I was convinced of the need to strengthen research and teaching in contemporary philosophy, particularly in ethics, in Armenia. ETICA, with a budget of 2.5 million Euros, provides an excellent opportunity to fulfill this long-held ambition.

The success of my earlier European Union (EU) Horizon 2020 project, PERITIA, with AUA as one of the 11 partner institutions, paved the way for ETICA. The hard work of the AUA team, including Alen Amirkhanian, Dr. Balayan, Dr. Yevgenya Jenny Paturyan, and an administrative team headed by Siranush Harutunyan, ensured the very full and productive participation of the University in a complex multidisciplinary project, where the goal was the study of trust in and the trustworthiness of experts in the public domain. The contribution of AUA to that project was a key driver of the application to establish this new ERA Chair at AUA. In its first five years, ETICA will build on the success of PERITIA and will also continue to collaborate with its international partners in Ireland, the United Kingdom, Germany, Norway, Italy, France, and beyond.

Which AUA department(s) are expected to make use of and implement the grant? 

While philosophical in its main orientation, the project is interdisciplinary in its approach. ETICA will be based in the newly reconstituted TISS and will collaborate with various units affiliated with the Institute in areas relevant to our research project. I will also continue working closely with the AUA Acopian Center for the Environment and its director, Amirkhanian. The initial research theme of the project is “Trust and Hope in a Time of Poly-Crises.” Armenia, like the rest of the world, is facing a multiplicity of crises in the socio-political, media, and climate and other environmental landscapes, just to name a few. The project will conduct its primary activities of research, teaching, outreach to the general public, academic reform, and communication through a number of work packages where Dr. Balayan, Amirkhanian, Dr. Knar Khachatryan, Narek Ghazaryan, and I act as work package leaders.

What does AUA hope to achieve through the implementation of this grant? How will the grant improve the educational and academic landscape at AUA?

In line with AUA’s most recent strategic plan, a key goal of ETICA is to strengthen the University’s research profile. As the ERA Chair, I will be hiring a number of international researchers with the aim of publishing peer-reviewed articles and books throughout the duration of the project. The research standing of AUA and Armenia will also be strengthened through high-level international conferences and workshops on topics that are currently central to academic and socio-political discourses worldwide. We also aim to publish a peer-reviewed Yearbook on Ethics in Public Affairs, translate key books on ethics from English to Armenian, publish a Handbook of Applied Ethics in Armenian, and provide training in cutting-edge areas of applied ethics at AUA and beyond. A further purpose of the project is to support and strengthen AUA’s existing plans to reform its research practices and infrastructure by using funding and expertise from the EU. Finally, outreach to the general public is a core mission of ETICA, so we hope to establish lasting links between AUA and the general public through structured opportunities for discussions around key social and ethical issues.

ETICA is an ambitious, wide-ranging, and sorely needed project. Its success will depend on collaboration and open communication between individuals, academics, social groups, and institutions, not just at AUA, but also in the country at large. I look forward to the challenges ahead and will be proud to hold the post of ERA Chair at AUA over the next five years.