How do democracies react and cope as the COVID-19 crisis unfolds and with what effects?

This is the core question in the HOPE project - “How Democracies Cope with COVID-19: A Data-Driven Approach”. As a direct result of the spread of COVID-19 and the acute health crisis in Denmark and the rest of the world, the Carlsberg Foundation grants the HOPE project to investigate behavior in both the public space and on social media.

The HOPE project constitutes an unprecedented research project which examines the interrelationship between (a) the trajectory of the COVID-19 pandemic, (b) the decisions of governments and international organisations, (c) the media and social media landscapes and (d) citizens’ behavior and well-being. To this end, we utilize the fact that the COVID-19 pandemic is unfolding in the middle of the “big data” revolution. For the first time in human history, we are able to measure with extreme precision and time-resolution how governments and citizens react (and with what consequences) during an extremely severe crisis.  

This research project has been granted DKK 25 million by the Carlsberg Foundation.