From November 2019 to March 2021, Alise Tifentale was a postdoctoral Researcher at the Communication Studies department led by media scholar Anda Rožukalne at the Riga Stradins University (RSU), Riga, Latvia.
During her time at the RSU Communication Studies department, Tifentale led a consortium of five Latvian research institutions that won a nation-wide competition to implement a State Research Program funded project in social sciences, Life with COVID-19: Evaluation of overcoming the coronavirus crisis in Latvia and recommendations for societal resilience in the future (VPP-COVID-2020/1-0013). The grant amount was EUR 497,580.00, the project involved more than 88 scholars, and the project was implemented from July 1, 2020 to March 31, 2021. The main areas of research in the project were the media, sociology, social services, and education.
Implemented under extreme pressure from the funding agency, the media and the society, and the second wave of COVID-19 crisis in Latvia in the fall of 2020, the project Life with COVID-19 successfully produced 11 reports to policy- and decision-makers, more than 62 international scholarly publications, 3 open access research tools, and open access data in 2 repositories.
Alise Tifentale speaking about the aims of the recently launched State Research Program project Life with COVID-19 in the TV3 live morning show 900 Seconds. Riga, July 30, 2020.
The project’s consortium comprised RSU, the University of Latvia, Rezekne Academy of Technologies, Vidzeme University of Applied Sciences, and the Institute of Electronics and Computer Science.
The project aimed to evaluate the preparedness of Latvian society to overcome the first wave of COVID-19 crisis in spring 2020 and its capability to address it, as well as to prepare social sciences’ recommendations for future scenarios to help reinforce the society’s resilience.
Basic information on the project in English is here, and here is the full description of the project and its findings after its completion.
While at the RSU, in early 2020 Alise Tifentale also co-authored (together with Dr. Ilva Skulte) the Journalism in the Era of Disinformation (JEDI) program at the RSU, created with the US Department of State-sponsored IREX Media Literacy in the Baltics grant (grant amount USD 20,000).
Alise Tifentale representing Riga Stradins University at the US Department of State-sponsored IREX Media Literacy in the Baltics Design Workshop in Riga, February 19. 2020.