Equity is a multidimensional concept requiring the comparison of different aspects of well-being. This is even truer in modern “Risk Societies”, where equity has to be assessed in different possible or likely scenarios, over long periods. The aim of project EquiRisk is to develop methods and evaluation tools making it possible to coherently aggregate different dimensions of well-being in risky economic environments, so that we can assess the equity of individual situations. To this end, we will use the framework proposed by the theory of fair social choice : the theory proposes to ground the aggregation of different dimensions of well-being in individuals' preferences. We will first further explore the method by applying it on happiness data and by better understanding the formation and the evolution of preferences. We will then address the specific challenges raised by situations involving risks. One problem is to decide which preferences should be taken into account in that case, how to aggregate different “states of the world”, and more importantly how to jointly take into account inequalities in risks and in final consequences. After tackling the problem at a general level, the project will study two more specific issues: climate change and human longevity, which both involve risk and time. Climate change raises the issue of intergenerational equity while the number of future generations is itself unknown and catastrophes may unfairly affect some of them. Human longevity raises the question of the cumulative effects of income and length of life inequalities. In both cases, the project will seek to identify public policies that can reduce the different sources of unfairness. The results of project EquiRisk will appear on a website and in working papers (to be published in peer-reviewed journals) as the project develops. A seminar will also be set up to engage discussions with scholars from different disciplinary backgrounds about the multidimensional aspect of equity and the specific issues raised by the presence of risks. A synthesis of the project will be made during a final international conference gathering prominent scholars from various disciplines. A dissemination of the results of project EquiRisk directed at public authorities and international agencies will also be organized, in particular through the participation of one member of the group to the next IPCC report.

The term “biology”, coined in Germany and France at the beginning of the 19th Century (by Treviranus and Lamarck), marks the emergence of a new field of research, which instantly sparked the enthusiasm of experts of other disciplines and of writers. French literature seizes on biological knowledge early on, utilizing its concepts in ways more or less true to their original meaning, commenting and elaborating on them and finding new topics and forms, thereby contributing to their promotion as a global cultural reality, through discourses, which have, in turn, impacted the reception and even the thinking of scientists themselves. It is this flow of knowledge that we wish to address in this project, focusing on knowledge from the field of biology, as much because the invention of the term signals the emergence of a new disciplinary awareness (breaking with the older “natural history”), as because we thereby touch upon the transformations of a fundamental knowledge, closely linked to the conceptualization of the living, where existing research has preferred to focus on other disciplines (physics, mathematics, medicine, geology) or the sudden advent of technology. Biolographes, therefore, intends to fill a significant gap, in providing a benchmark study on the impact of biological knowledge on French literary production in the 19th Century, developed from the standpoint of a literary criticism open to interdisciplinary research and addressed to other specialists of literary theory as well as to cultural and scientific historians. To this end, we plan to provide an original and representative corpus of literary works dealing with biological knowledge, taking into account major authors as well as lesser-known ones, published texts, private and draft documents. These documents will be the object of literary analysis and mass studies with the threefold objective of: - understanding the channels and modalities of the spread of this knowledge among writers, - analyzing the usage and function of biological knowledge in literary works, under thematic (what topics do they treat, with which epistemological inflexions?), pragmatic (to what effect?) and formal aspects (what are the processes of transformation, the narrative and poetic yield, the structuring effects of this knowledge?); this also presupposes the identification of the ideological and rhetorical stakes of this knowledge (recourse to biological knowledge often serves broader debates of a philosophical, racial, political or esthetic nature), - modeling the temporal and conceptual concurrences and discrepancies between history of science and literature. The decision to present this project as a French-German program is justified by the nature of our research topic. For, without prejudging other, often better-researched foreign influences (e.g. that of Darwin), this study could not be conducted without taking into account the considerable impact of German scientists (especially Haeckel) on French writers.

Since September 11, 2001, “radicalization” has become a category and major topic of public and scientific debate in the Anglo-Saxon world. The same applies to France, particularly since the January and September 2015 attacks. But as soon as we turn our attention towards political and geographical areas less concerned by radical Islamism, the very term “radicalization” does not seem to fit anymore. Hence we will consider extreme violence in other contexts and with other political and religious features. Violence, in all its shapes and outcomes, has always been a major field of social science research. This, however, does not apply to exiting violence, even more if we give this notion a wider meaning that goes beyond the simple ending, definite or temporary, of a process of violence and includes collective (e.g. State related) as well as individual (e.g. the healing of psychological traumas) dimensions. Just as violent radicalism must not be reduced to jihadism, exiting violence is not limited to the process of “de-radicalization”. As part of the platform Violence and exiting violence, the Observatory of radicalization and the Observatory of exiting violence are collaborating since 2015 to understand radicalization not simply as self-inflicted deterioration, but rather as a process involving numerous factors and configurations external to the radicalized subject. In a dynamic, multidimensional and transversal approach, this project seeks to compare experiences of extreme violence and of exiting violence located in different geographical areas, in order to put forward an understanding of contemporary developments by combining multidisciplinary approaches (political sociology, anthropology, law, diplomacy) and by avoiding “methodological nationalism” and the usual theoretical and geographical compartmentalization. The team will work in an effort to converge issues, fields and tasks determined beforehand. Various fields (Latin America with the guerillas and cartels; Africa with the militias, civil wars and genocides, Europe with terror attacks, jihadist radicalization but also the Basque independence movement; the Middle East with Daesh) will be compared according to the identified thematic approaches and a common methodology (individual interviews, participants’ observations, analysis of official reports, video and social media analysis, etc.), leading to a deeper understanding of the patterns of and reasons for radical and violent mobilization. This multi-level typology will range from the individual to the global level without under- or overestimating the protagonists’ national and local peculiarities, and will be complemented by cross-cutting research on other armed conflicts. This comparative perspective and original methodology across geographical contexts, analytical levels and stakeholders is intended to bring forward useful insight for policy makers, researchers and experts. Four cross-cutting issues have been identified: 1/ From subjective experience to collective commitment 2/ From radicalization to violent action 3/ How to exit violence (or avoid it right from the start) ? 4/ Kinship and social networks