Hvordan kan man være fremragende i EU/ERC, men for dårlig for NFR/FRIPRO?

Senterleder Mamelund og flere andre har i de seneste årene fått middels gode karakter og avslag på søknader sendt til toppforskningssporet i Norges forskningsråd (FRIPRO), men intervjuer, toppkarakterer og tilslag på samme søknader i elitesporet i Forskningsrådet i EU (ERC). Hva kan være årsakene til de ulike vurderingene? I en kronikk i Khrono 30 juni, Er jeg toppforsker, bunnforsker eller begge deler?, skriver Mamelund at han tror at Norges forskningsråd (NFR) har noe å gå på i sine rutiner med å finne riktige og flere gode fagfeller og at de kan lære av ERC og be fagfellene om å gi mer konkrete og lengre tilbakemeldinger til søkerne. Særlig bør bruken av KI evalueres kritisk, hevder han også.

Les også et oppføgingsintervju ifbm med kronikken, Fremragende, sier ERC. For dårlig, mener Norges forskningsråd. — Føles som voksenkjeft, hvor både Mamelund og NFR utdyper om likhetene og forskjellene på FRIPRO vs. ERC.

New incoming MA-student

Shahadat Hossain is a Master’s (MA) student in Nordic Social Policy and Global Sustainable Development at Oslo Metropolitan University. He has a background in Peace and Conflict Studies from Bangladesh. This experience has shaped his interest in the intersection of global health, health inequality, and long-term societal resilience.

His MA thesis project at the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC) at OsloMet focuses on the “long-tail” of the 1918 flu. Titled “The Long-Tail Impact of the 1918 Spanish Flu on Global Mortality Patterns,” his research aims to analyze long-term excess mortality and epidemiological shifts in the decades following the pandemic.

His study spans 22 countries and regions across Europe, Asia, Oceania, South America, and the United States, drawing on monthly all-cause mortality data from 1906 to 1936. A key objective is to determine when pandemic-related mortality began to normalize and whether this transition followed a universal or context-specific trajectory.

A key part of his research involves assessing age-specific pneumonia and influenza (PI) mortality patterns. These patterns serve as indicators of when populations returned to a typical seasonal influenza profile—marked by a “U-shaped” mortality curve—in contrast to the “W-shaped” profile of the 1918 pandemic, which disproportionately affected young adults. Using Serfling regression models, Shahadat Hossain will estimate excess mortality and analyze the return to pre-pandemic norms.

Shahadat Hosssain will work with a rare historical dataset originally compiled by the French National Institute of Demographic Studies (INED) in 1954 and digitized by PANSOC. He’ll apply time-series methods to measure excess mortality, compare cross-national trends, and control for major contextual influences such as World War I, economic disruptions, civil conflicts, and other public health crises.

As part of his academic development, Shahadat Hosssain will also participate in a summer school at Charles University in Prague in August 2025, focusing on Harmonizing and Visualizing Data in Research on Health Inequalities. This experience will further enhance his competencies in historical data analysis, interdisciplinary research, and collaboration.

If you like to contact Shahadat Hosssain, please see here: Our team – Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC)

New CAS-project: Indigenous Peoples & Pandemics: Data Completeness & Vaccine Access Disparities

In fierce competition with other research environments, we have just been offered a Short-Term residential fellowship at Centre for Advanced Study (CAS) at the Norwegian Academy of Science and Letters for the two months of November and December 2025.

Together with three fellows (Gerardo Chowell, Georgia State University, Elienai Joaquin-Damas, Oslo Metropolitan University and Hampton Gaddy, London School of Economics), Centre leader Svenn-Erik Mamelund will use the CAS residency to finalize two publications stemming from our previous participation in the 2022–2023 CAS project Social Science Meets Biology.

The two new papers will analyze “Differential timing of COVID-19 vaccine rollouts across Mexican municipalities” and “Completeness of mortality data at the time of the 1918-20 influenza pandemic in Alaska“.

Our time at CAS will also be used to host a small, policy-relevant workshop to present these findings and celebrate the 5-year anniversary of the Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society (PANSOC).

Nytt paper: “Role of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions during 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic, Alaska, USA”

Vi på PANSOC er skikkelig stolte av at Uddhav Kakhurel har publisert sitt master-arbeid i siste nummer av amerikanske Emerging Infectious Diseases. Arbeidet hans har Lisa Sattenspiel og Svenn-Erik Mamelund som medforfattere og er del av vårt CAS prosjekt 2022-23.

Du kan lese paperet her: Early Release – Role of Nonpharmaceutical Interventions during 1918–1920 Influenza Pandemic, Alaska, USA – Volume 31, Number 7—July 2025 – Emerging Infectious Diseases journal – CDC

Pandemics & Society Seminar on 5 June Postponed

The final Pandemics & Society Seminar of the Spring 2025 series, due to be held on 5 June with a presentation by Hampton Gaddy (LSE), has been postponed until Fall 2025.

We would like to thank all presenters and attendees of the Spring series for their participation. We have a full and varied calendar of talks planned for the fall, and the seminar schedule will be circulated in due course. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Book panel: Governing the Crisis. Narratives of COVID-19 in India

Today Dr. Rahul Ranjan presented his book “Governing the Crisis: Narratives of Covid 19 in India” (Talyor & Francis, 2025) at a seminar held at Centre for Research on Pandemics & Society.

Dr. Ranjan is writer and assistant professor in Environmental and climate Justice at the Department of Human Geography, School of Geosciences, University if Edinburgh.

Discussions evolved around three main areas:

I. Law, Biomedical Emergencies, and Policy Response

II. Migration, Indigeneity, and Cultural Impact

II. Frontline Workers, Caste Dynamics, and Labour Force

New Paper: Socioeconomic inequalities in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional analysis of income poverty | PLOS One

This new paper is a collaboration with colleagues in Chile and Mexico. You can read it here:

Socioeconomic inequalities in Chile during the COVID-19 pandemic: A regional analysis of income poverty | PLOS One

he COVID-19 pandemic caused an unprecedented economic crisis, intensifying poverty levels in Latin America, particularly in Chile. This study examines the short- and long-term socioeconomic impacts of COVID-19 on income poverty in Chile, focusing on regional disparities, rurality, ethnicity, educational attainment, and immigration. Using data from the Chile National Socioeconomic Characterization Survey (CASEN) for 2017, 2020, and 2022, we analyzed poverty trends across the pre-pandemic, pandemic, and post-pandemic periods. We employed spatial clustering techniques with Local Moran’s I to detect poverty hotspots and applied logistic regression models to identify key sociodemographic factors associated with these hotspots. Our results reveal stark regional disparities, with disproportionately higher poverty rates among rural populations, Indigenous communities, and individuals with lower education levels or immigrant backgrounds. The proportion of individuals in poverty hotspots rose from 6.8% in 2017 to 8.6% in 2020, before slightly declining to 7.7% in 2022. Although emergency monetary subsidies helped reduce overall poverty from 10.8% in 2020 to 6.5% in 2022, these measures were insufficient to address deep-rooted structural inequalities. Our findings underscore the urgent need for targeted, long-term policies that go beyond temporary financial assistance and tackle systemic disparities linked to rurality, ethnicity, education, and immigration. Such measures are essential for achieving sustainable poverty reduction and fostering inclusive economic growth in Chile.

Mamelund co-author on two new papers

Our Centre-leader is co-author on a new paper with several external collaborators, “The Role of Social Media in Mitigating the Long-Term Impact of Social Isolation on Mental and Cognitive Health in Older Adults During the COVID-19 Pandemic: The HUNT Study”,  International Journal of Geriatric Psychiatry | Wiley Online Library

Summary

  • Those experiencing social isolation during the pandemic faced a larger decline in mental health, but not cognitive health, compared to those who were not isolated.
  • Staying connected through social media during the pandemic did not prevent mental health decline but was associated with a slower rate of cognitive decline in both socially isolated and not isolated individuals.
  • The COVID-19 pandemic highlighted the limitations of relying only on digital solutions to maintain social connections, mental health, and cognitive function.

Mamelund was also co-author on another recently published paper, “A longitudinal cohort study on dispensed analgesic and psychotropic medications in older adults before, during, and after the COVID-19 pandemic: the HUNT study” in BMC Geriatrics.
https://doi.org/10.1186/s12877-025-05745-8

Pandemics & Society Seminar, 8 May: Spatio-temporal Contours of Plague Spread in the Later Mamluk Period, c. 1363–1517

For the sixth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Spring 2025 series we are pleased to welcome Philip Slavin (University of Stirling). The seminar will be held on Thursday, 8 May at the normal time (1600 CEST). More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

The late Michael Dols has produced much valuable research on the topic of plague outbreaks in Mamluk Middle East. Paradoxically – and with the exception of Stuart Borsch’s work on the Black Death in Egypt — the topic remains under-investigated, with many questions unanswered. The proposed paper will focus on the question: When and how was plague imported into Egypt and how did it spread over its territories, in the later Mamluk period. Did Egypt have its own plague reservoir, as claimed by some 18th– and 19th-century writers, both Western and Egyptian? Or was it imported from elsewhere? If so, from where and by what means? And how would plague spread within Egypt, once imported on ships or on camelback? To answer this questions, the paper will rely on a wide array of sources – first and foremost, Mamluk chronicles, but also other, hitherto unutilised materials, including pilgrims’ travelogs, and correspondence of Italian merchants, , notaries, travellers and diplomats (often overlapping categories). Taken together, these sources connect together pieces of puzzle, thus revealing some fascinating insights into the questions above. Although dealing with a later period compared to other conference papers, its methodology, findings and conclusions may appear instructive to scholars and scientists of earlier plague/ infectious diseases in Egypt, for which much less source material survives.

About the Speaker

Philip Slavin received a BA and MA from the Hebrew University of Jerusalem, and a PhD from the Centre for Medieval Studies at the University of Toronto. He was a postdoctoral researcher at Yale and McGill, and taught at Kent before becoming Professor of History at Stirling. He is a historian working on the global history of infectious diseases and environmental disasters. He is currently engaged in several inter-disciplinary projects dealing with ‘big questions’ of the history of evolution and ecology of plague, on a global scale and in a longue durée perspective, in collaboration with aDNA scientists and palaeo-climatologists. He has published two books and 55 articles on various topics of economic, environmental history and history of diseases.  

Pandemics & Society Seminar, 24 April: Invisible Illness, A (Part of the) History

For the fifth Pandemics & Society Seminar of our Spring 2025 series we are pleased to welcome Emily Mendenhall (Georgetown University). Note that the seminar will be held on Thursday, 24 April, one hour earlier than usual at 1500 CEST. More information about our speaker and the presentation is below. You can sign up for email notifications about the seminar series, including the Zoom details, here.

Abstract

Long Covid is an old story linked to a new virus. Chronic Lyme. Chronic Fatigue Syndrome. Chronic Pain. These contested conditions are interpreted with trepidation—in many cases throughout history they have been considered unreal or imagined among medical professional: a cry for help from a hysterical woman. Though, their prominence is patterned throughout history and takes center stage in famous literature, social science, and medical humanities. Because women are centered as those most afflicted by these conditions, they have become largely feminized and dismissed, regardless of who they are. Yet, the long history of symptoms that are defined as “unexplained” or “complex” or “contested” tell us more about medicine than they do about people. These symptoms may be physical—such as pain in the back, extremities, or the base of the neck. They may be psychological—such as dissociation, brain fog, or lack of focus. They may be emotional—such as deep sadness or anxiety. It is important to listen to these complex bundles of symptoms and try to decipher them: not only through the arc of someone’s life but also a cultural history through which they have emerged, shifted, and transformed. In this talk, I track this history, beginning with hysteria, and leading us to the present-day.

About the Speaker

Emily Mendenhall is a medical anthropologist, Guggenheim Fellow, and Professor in the Edmund A. Walsh School of Foreign Service at Georgetown University. Mendenhall has published widely at the boundaries of anthropology, psychology, medicine, and public health. This work focuses on social and biological links between social trauma and diabetes, the theory and experience of syndemics, how and why people use idioms of distress, mental health and well-being, complex chronic illness, and the politics of pandemics. Her monographs include Syndemic Suffering: Social Distress, Depression, and Diabetes among Mexican Immigrant Women (2012), Rethinking Diabetes: Entanglements with Trauma, Poverty, and HIV (2019), and Unmasked: COVID, Community, and the Case of Okoboji (2022). Her new book, Invisible Illness: A History, from Hysteria to Long Covid, will be published in 2025.