PRIO’s Marta Bivand Erdal has been awarded a prestigious ERC Starting Grant by the European Research Council. The aim of Starting Grants is to support early-career researchers who show exceptional talent, the sole criteria of selection being academic excellence.
PRIO is home to several ERC grants, including Consolidator Grants awarded to Halvard Buhaug in 2015, and Jørgen Carling in 2018. Now, Marta Bivand Erdal joins this group thanks to her innovative new project titled: “Migration rhythms in trajectories of upward social mobility in Asia”, focused on examining the roles of migration for social mobility - specifically for today’s middle class - in Asia.
By interviewing four different Asian cities – Karachi, Mumbai, Hanoi and Manila – the project will investigate not only how migration has affected upward social mobility over time, but also what narratives people construct around migration.
“Marta Bivand Erdal is an exceptionally talented and engaged scholar, and consistently an asset to any project or process in which she is involved. She has made - and continues to make - an invaluable contribution to the academic community at PRIO, and is an important voice within the field of migration research. It is well-deserved that her abilities and achievements have now been recognized by the European Research Council,” says PRIO Director Henrik Urdal.
