Inauguration of Centre for the Experimental-Philosophical Study of Discrimination (CEPDISC)
Friday, December 4, 2020, was the day of the official opening of CEPDISC, one of the DNRF’s ten new Centers of Excellence, led by Professor Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen from Aarhus University. The center will research discrimination with an experimental-philosophical approach. The opening was split between a virtual meeting on Zoom and a physical meeting at Aarhus University.
Friday, December 4, 2020 was the day of the official opening of the Center of Excellence CEPDISC. It was held partly at the Department of Political Science at Aarhus University and partly virtually on Zoom. The new Center of Excellence has been open since August 1, 2020, but because of Covid-19, the original opening was pushed back. The center will research discrimination and will combine philosophical analysis with an experimental method.
The opening started out with congratulations from the Danish National Research Foundation’s CEO Søren Peter Olesen on Zoom:
“Congratulations to Kasper and the whole CEPDISC team! It is an impressive team that you have put together. There is a very, very high professionalism, and then there are the complementary competencies that the center has. At the DNRF, we often see how difficult it is to understand this center construction, how to get synergies from the differences and create something unique. It is – in our opinion – a real Center of Excellence,” said Olesen.
Afterward, Vice Chancellor Brian Bech Nielsen from Aarhus University spoke:
”A warm welcome to everyone who is here physically as well as virtually. It is with great pleasure and pride that I can welcome CEPDISC to AU. Fundamental research is the strongest fuel in science that sparks a special fire within the researchers. It is a special feeling to stand as a pioneer with not only new answers, but also new questions. CEPDISC’s ambition to unite political theory with political psychology is groundbreaking,” said Nielsen.
Later Peter Munk Christiansen took the platform:
“It is our ambition at the institute to be among the best, and that is what you are, when you get a grant from the Danish National Research Foundation,” said Christiansen.
The opening also included remarks from Professor Lotte Thomsen from CEPDISC.
What is discrimination?
Head of Center Kasper Lippert-Rasmussen took his place among the ranks of speakers. He introduced the three main questions that CEPSISC wishes to answer: What is discrimination? What are the most important objections to discrimination? What can and should be done to counteract discrimination? He finished with a look at how CEPDISC sets itself apart:
“We are actually a little bit special in CEPDISC. We are the first and only Danish research center to focus on discrimination, and the first and only research center in the world that is dedicated to an experimental-philosophical approach. At CEPDISC, we have some of the best researchers in CEPDISC’s different disciplines, and the research field is especially diverse when it comes to those disciplines that are represented in the center,” said Rasmussen.