The European Research Council (ERC) has today announced its ambassadors, among which Assoc. Prof. and Senior Research Fellow at the Institute of Criminology, Dr. Mojca Mihelj Plesničar, has been selected as Slovenian ERC Ambassador.
The ERC Ambassador network will work with policy makers, the media and local research communities to raise awareness of the ERC’s funding opportunities and its contribution to solving social and economic challenges. The Ambassadors will also support ERC project leaders in their contacts with national institutions and complement the work of the National Contact Points with their experience.
“In an age of information overload, where it is sometimes difficult to distinguish between truth and opinion, science offers us a verifiable and methodical way of understanding the world. Its reliability is based on doubt – on the willingness to repeatedly test what we think we know – and that is why it remains one of the most important foundations of social progress. Science reaches its full potential when we give it free rein – when researchers can develop ideas that spring from their curiosity, imagination and expertise. Such research often leads to breakthroughs that cannot even be imagined in advance,” said Dr. Mihelj Plesničar upon her appointment.
She also emphasized that the great advantage of the ERC is to support the courage and creativity of research projects that do not only pursue short-term or commercially oriented goals, but also strive for new scientific knowledge with long-term impact.
“As an ERC Ambassador, I want to help foster trust in the vision of science that the ERC embodies, and raise awareness of the importance of investing in research. At the same time, I hope to encourage Slovenian researchers to seize these opportunities – because they have the knowledge, experience, and ideas to stand shoulder to shoulder with the very best. Sometimes, the most important step is simply allowing ourselves to believe – and to try,” she added.
It should be recalled that Dr. Mojca Mihelj Plesničar was awarded an ERC project in 2024 to start an independent research path entitled Sentrix – »Sentencing architecture: building a decision-making matrix«, which she is conducting at the Institute of Criminology, Faculty of Law, University of Ljubljana as a guest institution. Using an innovative approach, she wants to present sentencing as a complex decision-making system shaped by the environment and contribute to a more transparent and fairer criminal justice system with the help of simulations and visualisations.
