From one idea to €2.6 Million funded project EMMELO: How one researcher built a European Network that transformed her work.
What happens when a researcher stops waiting for opportunities and starts building them?
For Professor Ekaterina Yahyaoui at University of Galway, the answer is a story of persistence, human connection, and remarkable results.
In October 2022, Ekaterina Yahyaoui — an Established Professor at the Irish Centre for Human Rights in the School of Law at University of Galway — was just beginning to map out what would become one of the most productive collaborative journeys in her career.
ENLIGHT is a European University Alliance — a network of ten universities working together across education, research, and innovation. ENLIGHT RISE (2021-2024) was its research and innovation sister project, funded by the EU's Horizon 2020 programme. The name stands for 'Research and Innovation agenda with and for Society'. While ENLIGHT connects universities through teaching and learning, RISE was where the joint research ambition took shape — pooling expertise across the alliance to tackle shared challenges and build a more sustainable, equitable Europe.
In January 2023 Ekaterina was invited to represent the university on ENLIGHT RISE's Focus Group on Equity. She stepped straight into a leadership role, heading a subgroup on Identity, Belonging, and Democracy.
When University of Galway announced a call for the creation of ENLIGHT RISE Research Networks in April 2023, Ekaterina applied, and secured €80,000 in seed funding to establish DEMOGLOBE, a research network built with partners at Uppsala University and the University of Bordeaux. Using her connections from the Equity Focus Group, she also brought researchers from the Universities of Göttingen and Tartu on board.
What followed was eighteen months of deliberate, sustained work — one-to-one meetings, consortium-building, tracking down missing expertise across ENLIGHT's partner universities, and the kind of persistent follow-up that most people avoid. Ekaterina modelled what good academic collaboration looks like, intentional and human centred.
From that single seed funding grant, that allowed recruitment and training of early career researchers who, inspired by Ekaterina’s motivation, shared her dedication, three Horizon Europe proposals emerged:
- EMMELO (European Men, Masculinity and Extremist Leadership Online) — funded, securing €2.6 million with partners in Uppsala, Bordeaux, and Göttingen
- G(ENGAGE) — placed on the reserve list, demonstrating strong competitiveness
- FFluidD — ranked above threshold, recognised for scientific excellence
All three proposals scored exceptionally high marks. The difference was simply the level of competition.
The network kept growing. When the University of Bern joined ENLIGHT in 2024 as an Associate Partner, Ekaterina reached out there too. New joint applications followed — a COST Action (under evaluation) and an MSCA Doctoral Network proposal rated highly enough to resubmit. Neither of these were in the original plan. This is an example of what a well-built network does: it creates opportunities no one predicted at the start.
In November 2025, Ekaterina was awarded funding to lead IDenti-T: Interdisciplinary Dialogue on Evolving Identities in Times of Democratic Transformations — a major ENLIGHT Thematic Network bringing together partners from University of Bordeaux, University of Göttingen, and University of the Basque Country.
The lesson is straightforward: networks don't build themselves. They are built by people who see a gap, step up, and keep showing up — even when the outcome is uncertain. Ekaterina's journey is proof of what becomes possible when collaboration is treated not as a box to tick, but as a craft worth doing well.
For more information about ENLIGHT at University of Galway, contact