Professor Yvonne Daly of Dublin City University’s School of Law and Government and Professor Shane O’Mara of Trinity College Institute of Neuroscience and Trinity’s School of Psychology are two of the four co-principal investigators in the ‘JUSTICE’ project.

The pair are joined by Professor Dave Walsh of De Montfort University in the UK and Dr Bennett Kleinberg of Tilburg University in the Netherlands.

Together, they have been awarded funding of €10,403,517 by the European Research Council (ERC) for their six-year project.

JUSTICE — Joining Unique Strategies Together For Interrogative Coercion Elimination — will bring together experts from law, psychology, neuroscience, and data science to find out why coercive practices take hold and how to replace them with humane, effective interviewing.

JUSTICE aims to protect rights, get reliable information, and strengthen public trust.

The JUSTICE team are among 66 research teams to have been awarded Synergy grants announced by the ERC yesterday. A total of 712 proposals were submitted to this call.

ERC Synergy awards foster collaboration between outstanding researchers, enabling them to combine their expertise, knowledge and resources to push the boundaries of scientific discovery. This funding is part of the EU’s Horizon Europe research and innovation programme.

Professor O’Mara, a professor of experimental brain research at Trinity, said: “The JUSTICE project is about moving from confession-seeking to truth-seeking.

“By combining law, psychology, neuroscience and data science, we’ll attempt to pinpoint when and why coercion creeps into interviews, and devise practical ways to prevent it.

“Our project goal is humane, reliable interviewing that protects the innocent, supports victims, and strengthens public trust in justice.”

Professor Daly, a professor of criminal law and evidence at DCU, added: “All four of us are truly excited at the prospect of bringing our knowledge, expertise and experience from our home disciplines together to tackle this serious societal issue through the JUSTICE project.

“We’ve already learned so much from one another in devising our cross-disciplinary work programme and look forward to growing a strong team to undertake this ambitious research, with the support of the ERC Synergy award.”