Excellence – A chance and a challenge
4. December 2007
Konstanz, 4. December 2007: The sixteen Professors from the University of Konstanz who made the funding application gained a modicum of fame simply for taking it upon themselves to establish the first Center of Excellence for the Humanities. The establishment of the Center entailed a wide range of challenges. Not only did the project face numerous practical problems, such as the question of how to provide the facilities necessary for as many as 80 new professors; the founders also needed to create a charter laying out the ground rules for the Center and begin their own research as quickly as possible.
The founders were able to draw on their long experience in interdisciplinary cooperation – both in Collaborative Research Centers and in the individual university departments. But the sheer complexity of the task at hand called for new and creative solutions. The scope of the Center of Excellence ranged from philosophy, to history, sociology, literary studies, political science, public policy, management and law. In effect, the research focus of the Center led to the establishment of a real-world counterpart.
What makes the Center of Excellence so unique?
“Collaborative Research Centers and other research partnerships have existed for some time, but the level of funding and the freedom of research at the Center is much more substantial,” explained Prof. Rudolf Schlögl, spokesperson for the Center of Excellence. Not only does the Center – essentially a more flexibly structured research partnership – have an annual budget of 6.5 million Euros; the Center’s funds can be used to create and combine a variety of “research components” including research groups, Ph.D. programs, programs of study and additional professorships. This flexibility enables academics to approach their subject matter through a range of perspectives, methods and institutions.
The key components of the Center of Excellence are now up and running: the “Cultures of Time” Ph.D program has begun its work, the “Institute for Advanced Study” has taken up residence in its new rooms and new professorships have been filled while others are currently awaiting appointment. Can work on the various research projects finally begin in earnest? “Naturally the initial phase at the Center involved an enormous amount of organizational work. But we expect that this workload will decrease significantly, leaving us with more time to pursue our research goals,” explained Rudolf Schlögl.
What will the Center study?
Research at the Center will focus on processes of integration and disintegration. The research in Konstanz breaks with conventional understandings which consider integration as the rule from which disintegration deviates. Researchers at Konstanz believe that both of these phenomena provide valuable insight into the origins and effects of social processes. Ultimately, the focus of these projects will be on the mechanisms driving the creation of social structures, how these structures assert themselves and/or change, and the fundamental constituents of social order. Researchers at the Center do not subscribe to the assumption that culture forms a reservoir of shared values upon which social identity rests like a foundation. Rather culture figures as a transitional space - as the site of contact and difference. The research carried out at the Center promises to provide interesting insights into highly topical subjects such as migrant flow, failed and disintegrating states and the processes of European integration.