By Matilde Albrektsen, AAU Communication and Public Affairs
Photo: Claus Lillevang and Independent Research Fund Denmark

Johan Heinsen, Professor of History, Department of Politics and Society, AAU has received the 'Original Idea of the Year' award for his research on tracing escape attempts in Denmark in the period 1750-1850, using artificial intelligence. The research project provides insight into how servants, convicts and soldiers escaped the grip of power, and offers new perspectives that contribute to a new and deeper understanding of the Danish state and its development.
 

Heinsen: Important to experiment

Johan Heinsen is delighted with the award which he sees as an encouragement to think in unconventional ways:

"It's a great honour for me and my team. In a way, it's an acknowledgement that it's important to experiment," says Johan Heinsen.

In addition, he emphasizes that research often moves outside the usual framework, and that is precisely why he views this recognition as a special confirmation for him and his team:

"Our research is unconventional, and we cannot know whether such experimentation will be successful. It would undoubtedly be easier to do something more incremental. So to receive this honour feels like a confirmation that we must dare to try to move our discipline in new directions," adds Johan Heinsen.

From hidden clues to digital insights, history gets new life

The research project is based on extensive source material consisting of court records and almost 600,000 newspaper pages from the period that Johan Heinsen reconstructed using 'machine learning'. The advanced technology enables the search and analysis of the newspaper material with an accuracy of 99 percent. Through, for example, wanted notices, the researchers have thus been able to map escape attempts with a level of detail not previously possible.

"As modern people, we think that we can't just disappear. If people escape from prison today, they are almost always found again. But at the beginning of the period of my investigation, it was actually possible to disappear on Danish soil and become someone else. And by the end of the period in 1850, that became almost impossible," says Johan Heinsen.

According to the professor, the period marks a turning point where the foundation of modern Danish society was laid.

"The period marks the creation of the state we live in today. We cannot disappear and we cannot become someone else. That reality has become completely natural to us, but it wasn’t always that way. The relationship we have with the state today was created here," he adds. 

Translated by LeeAnn Iovanni, AAU Communication and Public Affairs