Manuela Caiani , Associate Professor at the Department of Political and Social Sciences of the Scuola Normale Superiore, has been awarded the Volkswagen Grant 2018 for the research project Popular Music as a Medium for the Mainstreaming of Populist Ideologies in Europe. This international project, directed by the musicologist Mario Dunkel, of the University “Carl von Ossietzky” of Oldenburg (Germany), explores the ways in which popular music functions as a medium for the mainstreaming of populist ideologies in Hungary, Austria, Italy, Germany, and Sweden from a comparative perspective. Indeed, in recent years, a new form of political popular music has emerged: mainstream sounds with populist messages have gained widespread popularity beyond the confines of extremist circles. This recent phenomenon of commercially successful and widely received popular music promoting populist agendas has been instrumental in the growing success of populism in Europe. Therefore, this project identifies the negligence of music in the study of populist movements by examining popular music as one central element of the cultures of populism. Different empirical approaches such as musicological group analysis, sociological reception analysis via focus interviews and comparative transnational contextualization are used. Songs shall be identified which are widely popular and have been released between 2015 and 2018 in the mentioned countries. Also, this project will provide a theoretical framework for enabling future cultural educators to develop methods for critical awareness of populist cultures in education programs.