DCU Researcher to collaborate on €10 million ERC grant examining coercive interrogation practices
Around the world, coercive and abusive interrogation practices—from intimidation and psychological pressure to denial of rights and physical force—remain widespread. These methods violate human rights, produce unreliable information, and cause serious harm to individuals and justice systems alike.
Entitled ‘JUSTICE: Joining Unique Strategies Together For Interrogative Coercion Elimination’, the new project will bring together experts from law, psychology, neuroscience, and data science to find out why coercive practices take hold and how to replace them with humane, effective interviewing. JUSTICE aims to protect rights, get reliable information, and strengthen public trust.
The project features four co-Principal Investigators: Prof Yvonne Daly from the School of Law and Government at DCU, Prof. Shane O’Mara, from Trinity College Dublin, Prof. Dave Walsh from De Montfort University and Dr Bennett Kleinberg from Tilburg University.
The JUSTICE team are among 66 research teams to have been awarded Synergy grants announced by the ERC today. ERC grants are among the most prestigious and competitive funding awards globally. A total of 712 proposals were submitted to this call. In total, 712 proposals were submitted to this call, with only about one in ten proposals were selected for funding.
The project is also one of two featuring researchers based in Ireland this year. Prior to this call, there have only been 6 awards held in Ireland since 2012. Dr Daly and her colleagues' project is also the second ERC grant in the School of Law and Government this year.
ERC Synergy awards foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to combine their expertise, knowledge and resources to push the boundaries of scientific discovery. This funding is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.
Prof Yvonne Daly said
“All four of us are truly excited at the prospect of bringing our knowledge, expertise and experience from our home disciplines together to tackle this serious societal issue through the JUSTICE project. We've already learned so much from one another in devising our cross-disciplinary work programme and look forward to growing a strong team to undertake this ambitious research, with the support of the ERC Synergy award.”
Prof John Doyle, Vice President for Research said:
"DCU is delighted to receive this ERC Synergy Award. They are the most competitive awards in the European Research system and are a huge endorsement of the international significant of the work being undertaken in Dublin City University by our colleague Prof Yvonne Daly, and also the partner universities in this award."
Prof Shane O’Mara said
“JUSTICE is about moving from confession-seeking to truth-seeking. By combining law, psychology, neuroscience and data science, we’ll pinpoint when and why coercion creeps into interviews, and devise practical ways to prevent it. Our project goal is humane, reliable interviewing that protects the innocent, supports victims, and strengthens public trust in justice.”
Prof Dave Walsh said
“This esteemed ERC synergy grant award provides opportunity through innovative research to make a real and positive difference to lives right around the globe, through achieving criminal justice. Indeed, JUSTICE is a ground-breaking and ambitious project that will scientifically expose the fallacy of poor investigative practices, highlight the benefits of effective policing methods and systems, which are also those that remain ones that follow established ethical values, international legal norms and human rights - in short, they will resolve criminal cases using fair and effective, evidence-based means.”
Dr Bennett Kleinberg
“This grant enables us to pursue truly cross-disciplinary and ambitious research that would not otherwise be possible. Our project addresses a global, urgent and complex challenge: building the evidence base and driving change towards investigative interviewing practices that are effective, evidence-based, and fully compliant with human rights. We will now build a new research programme that is necessary to address that challenge and we are confident that as a team we can do this.”