Politics academic awarded 1.5m Euros for new five year project looking at managing autocrats
By: Heather Stanley
Last updated: Tuesday, 21 October 2025
Dr Dan Paget has received funding from the ERC worth 1.5 million Euros over 5 years
, Assistant Professor in Politics, has been awarded a (ERC) Starting Grant worth €1.5 million for a new 5-year research project entitled NEWREPUBLIC.
For NEWREPUBLIC, Dan will be leading a team to investigate two of the most urgent questions in politics:
- What ideas - as messages - can most effectively mobilise mass movements against autocrats, and autocrats in the making?
- What ideas animate real-world anti-autocratic movements?
These questions are not merely of academic significance, but of urgent importance to activists confronting autocracy around the world. A goal of the project is to generate findings that reach and are of practical use to those activists.
The empirical sites of research are all in Africa, yet Dan's goal is to generate insights which will be globally relevant - whilst keeping in view the specificity of the Africa movements on which he will focus.
In the coming months, Dan will be assembling the NEWREPUBLIC team for which he will be hiring:
- A three-year postdoctoral fellowship, specialising in experimental methods and survey research.
- Two fully-funded PhD studentships. These researchers will investigate anti-autocratic movements and their ideas in Africa. Funding available for international candidates.
For more details and latest news about the project: