There are three large humanities-oriented laboratories and research infrastructures at MU: the MUEEL Experimental Economics Laboratory at the Faculty of Economics and Administration, the HUME Lab for Experimental Humanities at the Faculty of Arts, and the Generations & Gender Progamme (GGP) at the Faculty of Social Studies. Researchers in the humanities and social sciences can also use other university core facilities and services to help them with data management and recruiting volunteers for research.
“In the public mind, research infrastructures are often associated with the natural sciences, and their visibility tends to correspond to the cost of their sophisticated equipment. However, Masaryk University also has several interesting, cutting-edge research infrastructures in the social sciences and humanities that we wanted to introduce to potential users,” said Ondřej Hradil, Research Infrastructure Manager at the MU Rector’s Research Office.
Economics in the laboratory
Shared laboratories for the social sciences and humanities involve working with data and providing repositories. They also facilitate the development of long-term, methodologically sound and comprehensive studies. Additionally, these laboratories can make use of high-end instrumentation and specialised research environments.
Economists and other researchers have been using the Experimental Economics Laboratory (MUEEL). Introduced by Miloš Fišar, it offers two experimental rooms with booths, facilities for field experiments and access to 2,800 active volunteers. MUEEL collaborates with universities and laboratories around the world.
Two of the experiments conducted at MUEEL were presented at the Core Facility Day. The first examined how relative age influences economic preferences, while the second investigated the impact of third-person gossip on trustworthiness in interactions between two individuals.
What can you research about a person?
The Experimental Humanities Laboratory (HUME Lab) at the Faculty of Arts helps study disciplines such as psychology, anthropology, archaeology, economics, pedagogy and religious studies. Eva Kundtová Klocová presented its extensive instrumentation and expertise at the Core Facility Day. The HUME Lab offers researchers a range of instruments, including eye-tracking, motion capture systems and virtual reality technology. It also has the ability to measure various parameters in monitored individuals, such as hormone levels, pain levels and heart rate. Some of the equipment is mobile and can be used for field experiments outside the lab.
But what is the purpose of such large laboratory facilities in the humanities and social sciences? At the Core Facility Day, for example, researchers presented a major project aimed at optimising wayfinding signage in hospitals. As part of this project, they developed a mobile eye tracker, which can identify what a person is looking at, as well as a virtual reality device for researching how people navigate public spaces and move during evacuations. Researchers will address how to improve navigation in healthcare facilities with the help of the HUME Lab and the support of the Technology Agency of the Czech Republic until 2026. The Agency also supported a second project which uses eye tracking and artificial intelligence to better diagnose dyslexia and help people with the condition.
The Faculty of Arts also has a project called Digitalia MUNI ARTS which is aimed at supporting digital research at the Faculty and preparing a virtual research environment. The project has already led to the development of several topic-specific databases, covering subjects such as Brno cinemas, archaeological artefacts, and patterns of 18th century liturgical clothing.
Family and society
The Generation and Gender Programme (GGP), a shared research infrastructure at the Faculty of Social Studies, is responsible for longitudinal international studies and databases. It was introduced by Dominika Perdoch Sladká. The programme focuses on research into family and life dynamics, providing researchers with data from longitudinal surveys of life events and changes in individuals from over 20 countries. Anonymised data collected in repeated surveys under the name Generation and Gender Survey (GGS) are available to researchers and policymakers, enabling them to contribute to both research and specific policy-making. For instance, researchers have used GGS data to analyse reproductive behaviour.
One interesting feature of the GGS survey is the analysis of “paradata” and the application of the results to subsequent investigation. Paradata is information about the data collection process and how questionnaires are filled in by respondents. This information can help identify problematic questions and adapt questionnaires for future use. For example, it can reveal whether respondents are completing a questionnaire on a computer or a smartphone.
Data first
In recent years, working with large datasets has become an increasingly important part of research. Additionally, the push for open science and data sharing across research groups, institutions, and countries demands a consistently high standard of dataset management.
At the Core Facility Day, representatives of the MU Institute of Computer Technology (ICT) presented the possibilities of secure work and data access. One such service is SensitiveCloud, a certified environment for securely storing, sharing and processing sensitive data, offering multi-factor authentication and support for various computing applications. Those involved in scientific data management can use the Data Stewardship Wizard to create data management plans and manage data according to the FAIR principles (i.e. to make it findable, accessible, interoperable and reusable).
Experts from ICT also presented Sona Systems, a web-based platform for managing research experiments, supporting online, laboratory and hybrid studies. Sona Systems facilitates the management of experiments and enables efficient collaboration with study participants, including the sending of emails, scheduling of meetings and verification of eligibility to participate in a study.
Brain
As part of the Core Facility Day for the humanities and social sciences, the MAFIL laboratory from CEITEC MU, which specialises in brain research, was presented. This multimodal and functional imaging laboratory assists not only neuroscientists and medical researchers, but also behavioural scientists. State-of-the-art equipment, including two functional MRIs and brain activity stimulators, has been used in sensory marketing research, investigating the importance of tactile sensation in consumer decision-making, and in urban stress research conducted by RECETOX MU researchers.