New Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society
2022-01-13 A milestone for basic research in cultural studies at Leuphana
Dear University Members,
dear colleagues, dear students,
We are pleased to inform you today in more detail – as already announced in the Annual Review 2021 – that the State of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation have pledged almost five million euros to Leuphana University Lüneburg for the funding of excellent early-career researchers in the humanities and social sciences. The funds from the Volkswagen Foundation's "Niedersächsisches Vorab" will be used to establish an Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society (IAS-CAS) at Leuphana, where young scholars will be able to devote themselves to their research on fundamental questions of social coexistence while receiving scholarships.
The funding decision confirms Leuphana's profile as a topic-oriented university that develops answers to contemporary problems in research and teaching. At the same time, it enables the university to take another important step toward expanding its research excellence in the humanities and social sciences and supports the development of Leuphana as an outstanding location for cultural studies research in the interweaving of the humanities and social sciences practiced in Lüneburg. The Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society is intended to establish basic research in cultural studies at Leuphana as an institution of international top-level research even more strongly than before.
Background: An Institute for Advanced Studies (IAS) is an academic institution with the goal of promoting excellent scientists and research in general or in a specific field. Through their funding formats, IAS offer scientists the opportunity for personal encounters and intellectual discourse. They want to provide free and experimental spaces with the aim of initiating creative processes and setting a framework for unplanned and unscheduled thought-provoking impulses.
At the heart of the project now being funded are eight fellowships per year with a duration of up to 12 months. They are intended to offer talented researchers from all over the world who are in the early stages of their scientific careers the freedom to develop their own research program. The declared aim is to focus cultural studies research on questions concerning the current, historical and future conditions of social coexistence. This also necessitates an intensive North-South dialogue, which is to be made possible not least by additional so-called remote fellowships.
The establishment of the Institute for Advanced Studies in Culture and Society follows the conviction that the lines of conflict of the present are not confined to regions or disciplines. The understanding of basic research in cultural studies, as it is to be conducted in the IAS-CAS, should therefore be interdisciplinary, international and diagnostic at the same time and thus open up the possibility of confronting social problem situations and going beyond a mere reaction to crises.
Intensive exchange and cooperative research should characterize the work of the institute. In addition to the eight fellows and the remote fellowships, two senior fellows, a scientist from Leuphana and a personality from public life and the arts will enrich the research there. The IAS-CAS is accompanied by an international board of trustees. The first calls for proposals will be published in the second half of the year. The new institute is expected to start its work in January 2023.
If you have any questions or suggestions regarding the work of the IAS-CAS, please do not hesitate to contact Prof. Dr. Susanne Leeb and Prof. Dr. Erich Hörl, who developed and will also lead the project.
With best regards
Yours
Sascha Spoun
President