The Cologne-based economist and social scientist Professor Dr Christopher Roth has been awarded a Starting Grant by the European Research Council (ERC). Professor Roth, who holds the Chair of Management and Economics at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences of the University of Cologne and is a member of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, receives the ERC Starting Grant for his project "Viral Narratives: The Role of Narratives for Economic Belief Formation". The ERC Starting Grant supports excellent early-career researchers for a period of five years with up to 1.5 million euros.

In addition to Christopher Roth, Professor Dr Markus Stetter has also secured an ERC Starting Grant. He conducts research at the Institute for Plant Sciences at the Cologne Biocenter of the Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences and is a member of the CEPLAS Excellence Cluster. He is receiving the funding for his project "Reconstruction of Specialized Metabolite Evolution Through Molecular Switches" (ROSE).

“We are very pleased about two new ERC Starting Grants. I would like to congratulate our two scientists on this great success,” said Professor Dr Joybrato Mukherjee, Rector of the University of Cologne.

Christopher Roth, Professor at the Faculty of Management, Economics and Social Sciences and member of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, receives the ERC Starting Grant for his project ‘Viral Narratives: The Role of Narratives for Economic Belief Formation’.
The project aims to provide a comprehensive analysis of the life cycle and impact of economic narratives – from their emergence and dissemination to their influence on economic behaviour.

Narratives are structured stories designed to convey information or ideas in a way that evokes a certain effect or reaction from the audience. Narratives can be used to explain complex topics, form opinions or communicate social and cultural values. Roth uses online experiments with collected language data, survey methods and artificial intelligence to find out, for example, why certain narratives on the financial and property markets go viral. He also analyses the mechanisms that make narratives convincing. This research approach provides a comprehensive view of how economic narratives emerge, how they spread and what effects they have on economic behaviours and beliefs.

ECONtribute is the only DFG-funded Cluster of Excellence in economics and a joint initiative of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne. “The ERC Starting Grant allows me to further expand the interdisciplinary research approach of our Cluster of Excellence,” said Roth.

• Prof. Dr Christopher Roth at „Find an Expert“
• Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy
• More about the ERC Starting Grant and Professor Dr Stetter's project (press release of the University of Cologne)
• Stetter lab at the Institute for Plant Sciences at the University of Cologne
• European Research Council