Thematic Area Society
Bonn is home to many experts who conduct research and teach in the field of society on the topics of economy, institutions and change, ethics and order, displacement and migration as well as heritage, remembrance and reconciliation. On this page, we bring together their expertise in BORA. We also present a young initiative that is supported by BORA.
As one of eleven German Universities of Excellence, the University of Bonn is one of the strongest research universities in Europe. It is known for its internationally networked top-level research, which is based on a collaborative, innovative and international research culture.
Joint research projects (funded by the DFG, BMBF, NRW) and collaboration with one or more BORA members since 2018 are presented here.
Research Projects
ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy, a joint initiative of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, aims to advance the analysis of markets & public policy in light of fundamental societal and technological challenges, such as digitalization, global financial crises, rising inequality and political polarization. Since 2019, ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy is funded as a Cluster of Excellence under the German Excellence Strategy. ECONtribute is the only Cluster of Excellence in Economics and neighbouring disciplines.
The development of responses to these societal challenges requires a comprehensive and innovative approach which takes account of societal objectives beyond economic efficiency, legal and political constraints and makes use of innovative research designs. To this end, the Cluster brings together outstanding researchers from economics and neighboring disciplines – management, psychology, political science and law – from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, the Behavior and Inequality Research Institute (briq) and the Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods and organizes their research activities under the roof of the Reinhard Selten Institute (RSI).
The ECONtribute network promotes two-way knowledge exchange between researchers and policymakers.
BORA cooperation partner
Max Planck Institute for Research on Collective Goods
Site Spokesperson
Professor Dr. Britta Klagge
Geographisches Institut
Meckenheimer Allee 166
53115 Bonn
Summary
The Collaborative Research Center (CRC) combines expertise from two complementary centers of excellence at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne to study newly emerging issues of social-ecological transformation and future-making in Africa. It takes current large-scale landuse change in rural Africa as its starting point. Focusing on the two seemingly opposite, yet often mutually constitutive processes of intensification and conservation, it investigates their impact on social-ecological transformation in the context of three major growth corridors in eastern and southern Africa. While social-ecological transformation is commonly understood in relation to past processes, this CRC takes a different perspective: It conceptualizes socialecological transformation as an expression of ‘future-making’. Resonating with current debates in the interdisciplinary field of future studies, this means that potential futures and the different ideas of how they can be realized are seen to have a decisive impact on current land-use dynamics, especially through diverse processes and politics of anticipation. ‘Futuremaking’ refers to physical changes as well as social practices that link the present to the future in various ways. Whereas natural scientists primarily study how a ‘future of probabilities’ is anticipated in different forms of calculation, measurements and models, the social scientists also take into account how a ‘future of possibilities’ takes shape in visions and imaginations. Together, the projects of the CRC will analyze how such different approaches to the future inform practices of large-scale land-use change, and how they relate to each other. Special emphasis will be put on surprises and unintended side-effects of future-making, which play a key role in characterizing rural Africa today.The CRC is structured in three project groups, each organized around a bridging concept that addresses specific aspects of social-ecological transformation and future-making (Figure 1). Project group A (‘coupling’) studies the articulation between social and ecological subsystems, B (‘boundaries’) looks at the shifting zones of interaction and confrontation, and C (‘linkages’) explores cross-scalar drivers, connections and causations. Empirical research focuses on development hubs in the Kenyan Rift Valley, the Southern Agricultural Growth Corridor of Tanzania, and the Kavango-Zambezi Transfrontier Conservation Area. The CRC builds upon profound research experience of the applicants and African counterparts, amplifies the unique combination of expertise at the universities of Bonn and Cologne, fosters partnerships with scholars and scientific institutions in Africa, and aims at making Bonn-Cologne one of the leading centers of innovative research in the emerging field of futures studies and social ecology in Africa.
Participating Institutions:
- Universität zu Köln (Speaker University)
- Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (bicc)
- German Institute of Develeopment and Sustainability (IDOS)
- Charité - Universitätsmedizin Berlin
- Cooperation partners in Africa
Term:
01.01.2018 - 31.12.2025 (2. Funding Period)
Spokesperson
Prof. Dr. Christian Borgemeister
Center for Development Research (ZEF)
Genscherallee 3
D-53113 Bonn
Summary
The Forschungskolleg “One Health and Urban Transformation – identifying risks, developing sustainable solutions” was launched in July 2016 and will investigate the various dimensions and transformations of the urban systems and their impact on human, animal and environmental health. The historical development and current challenges of North Rhine-Westphalia with a particular focus on the RuhrMetropolis (Germany), will be contrasted with three urban metropolitan areas: São Paulo (Brazil), Accra (Ghana) and Ahmedabad (India).
The ‘One Health’ concept adopts an integrative perspective of health, recognizing the intrinsic interconnections between human, animal and environmental health. Consequently, the environmental, social and economic systems interact with and shape One Health. Investigating these interactions in the context of urban transformation forms the basis for developing sustainable solutions that maximize synergetic effects, minimize trade-offs and mitigate health risks.
The NRW Forschungskolleg “One Health” is jointly operated by the Center for Development Research (ZEF), the International Centre for Sustainable Development (IZNE) of the University of Applied Sciences, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS) and the United Nations University – Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) Bonn, in collaboration with the Department of Geography (University Bonn), the Medical Faculty (University Bonn) and the Institute for Hygiene and Public Health. Additionally, the Forschungskolleg collaborates with research and implementation oriented partners in each of the four research areas.
Participating Institutions
- United Nations University, Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS)
- University of Applied Sciences, Hochschule Bonn-Rhein-Sieg (H-BRS), International Center for Sustainable Development (IZNE)
- Department of Geography, University Bonn
- Agricultural Faculty, University Bonn
- Medical Faculty, University Bonn
- Institute for Hygiene and Public Health (IHPH)
- Emscher Genossenschaft
- Ruhr-Verband
- Ahmedabad, India: Indian Institute of Public Health-Gandhinagar (IIPH-G)
- Accra, Ghana: Institute of Statistical, Social and Economic Research (ISSER), University Ghana
- São Paulo, Brazil: University São Paulo (USP)
Duration
2015-2024
fklapp-Text
Bonn's scientific landscape has a strong research infrastructure in various specialist and subject areas. Many of these have been developed in cooperation or are accessible to external parties. These infrastructures from the subject areas (1) Heritage, Memory and Reconciliation, (2) Flight, Displacement and Migration and (3) Economics: Economics, Institutions and Change are summarized here and listed by type.
Research Infrastructure
- Laboratories of archaeology, geology and paleontology (University of Bonn)
- Bonn Econ Lab (DecisionLab) (University of Bonn & MPI Collective Goods)
The BonnEconLab - Laboratory for Experimental Economic Research of the University of Bonn and the Decision Lab of the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Common Goods regularly conduct scientific behavioral experiments. Excellent command of the German language is required for participating in experiments at BonnEconLab. If you fulfill this requirement, you are invited to add your details to our subject database. - ECONtribute Data Lab (University of Bonn)
The Cluster bundles the datasets and expertise of ECONtribute in its own data lab. It consists of several data sources, including financial databases such as Eikon, WRDS, Compustat North America and Global, SNL Financial, and DealScan. - CLER (Cologne Laboratory for Economic Research) (University of Cologne, in collaboration with University of Bonn in the Cluster of Excellence EconTribute)
Since its opening in 2005, the Cologne Laboratory for Economic Research (CLER) has been one of the world's most active and largest laboratories. Interactive experiments can be conducted on the computer at almost 70 experimental stations. - MacroFinance and MacroHistory Lab (hosts the Jordà-Schularick-Taylor Macrohistory Database, University of Bonn)
The MacroFinance and MacroHistory Lab is based at the University of Bonn and affiliated with the ECONtribute Excellence Cluster. Aiming to lead the way in new research on central questions facing society, researchers at the Lab study the causes and consequences of financial instability and rising debt, the evolution of income and wealth inequality, as well as economic history and political economy.
- Archives & Collections (University of Bonn, Bonn University and State Library)
- Historical Collections: handwritten materials, musical scores, autographs, portraits, war letters, seals, deeds, coats of arms, papyri and ostraca, and more.
- Digital Collections: The Bonn University and State Library has an extensive and ever-growing collection of handwritten materials from the modern era: autographs, bequests, war letters, music autographs and manuscripts, and other materials. - BASA Museum (Bonner Amerikas-Sammlung) (University of Bonn)
The BASA Museum (Bonner Amerikas-Sammlung) is the archaeological-ethnographic teaching and study collection of the Department of Ancient American Studies at the University of Bonn. - NFDI4Memory - The Consortium for the Historically Oriented Humanities (University of Bonn)
4Memory represents not only the field of history as such but also other disciplines that make use of historical data as part of their methodologies, such as economics, social science, geography, and area studies. It aims to ensure the quality of historical research data, thereby safeguarding the critical role of the humanities in complex, rapidly changing societies. - NFDI4Objects - Research Data Infrastructure for the Material Remains of Human History (University of Bonn)
NFDI4Objects is an initiative to build a multidisciplinary consortium within the National Research Data Infrastructure (NFDI). The initiative is aimed at researchers and practitioners whose work focuses on the material heritage of around three million years of human and environmental history and is dedicated to the challenges of modern research data infrastructures. - NFDI4Culture - Consortium for Research Data on Material and Immaterial Cultural Heritage (University of Bonn)
NFDI4Culture establishes a needs-based infrastructure for research data ranging from architecture, art history and musicology to theatre, dance, film and media studies. - Text+ - Consortium for Language- and Text-based Data (University of Bonn)
The Text+ consortium will preserve text- and language-based research data in the long term and enable their broad use in science. - Scientific Collection of the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), Research Museum Koenig)
The scientific collections form an important basis for research at the Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB). The 15 million objects from the fields of zoology, geology-palaeontology and mineralogy have been collected over centuries in all parts of the world. - Biohistoricum (Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB), Research Museum Koenig)
The tasks of the Biohistoricum include systematizing, making available and exploring the various stocks such as partial estates, letters, illustrations and portraits, which have a reference to the history of biology in the German-speaking world. The own research library contains more than 50,000 volumes of books. The spectrum covers various life science disciplines (e.g. zoology, botany, evolutionary biology, medical history). - Collections of the Center for Historical Peace Research (Zentrum für Historsiche Friedensforschung) (Universtity of Bonn)
- Collections of the Bonn Middle Ages Center (Bonner Mittelalterzentrum / BMZ) (University of Bonn)
- Facts and Figures on war and peace — interactive online portal (bicc)
- Global Militarization Index (GMI) (bicc)
Scientific collections in museums I
- Egyptian Museum
- Academic Art Museum
- Arithmeum
- Goldfuß Museum of Paleontology
- Paul Clemen Museum (plaster casts)
- Bonn University Museum
Cooperation with museums:
- [Re:] Entanglements: Colonial Collections in Decolonial Times (Employees of the University of Bonn with museums in Great Britain)
- LVR LandesMuseum Bonn
- Stadtmuseum Bonn
- Deutsches Referenzzentrum für Ethik in den Biowissenschaften (DRZE) (University of Bonn)
- Stemm Cell Network.NRW (University of Bonn), Research Locoation Bonn
- Graduate Circles Civil Law, Public Law, Criminal Law, History of Law (University of Bonn)
- Max Planck Law (with the participation of the MPI Collective Goods)
Max Planck Law is a cooperative forum of ten institutes of the Max Planck Society that conduct basic research in the legal sciences. They are jointly committed to scientific excellence, international orientation and interdisciplinary research.
TRA Individuals and Societies
The six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) at the University of Bonn offer spaces for innovation in research and teaching. The scientists in this TRA "Individuals, Institutions and Societies" are investigating key influences on our social and economic decisions: Resource conservation, protection of art and cultural assets, morality and ethics, and determinants of human agency and motivation.
Bonn's scientific landscape has a strong research infrastructure in various specialist and subject areas. Many of these have been developed in cooperation or are accessible to external parties. In the field of economics, there are three doctoral programs.
Education Programs
Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) offers a structured program that is tailored to the needs of doctoral candidates, including an internationally recognized research network.
Involved BORA Institutions
Max Planck Institute for Collective Goods (MPI Collective Goods)
Institutions are ubiquitous. All human behavior is embedded in and guided by formal and informal institutions. The discipline of economics models individuals as having well-defined preferences, and as maximizing their personal well-being. In this perspective, institutions are constraints.
In our research program, the following questions will guide us: How can one help institutional analysts and designers make more adequate definitions of the problems that call for intervention? And how can one help them design interventions that are more effective, and ideally also less intrusive? How can this program of making institutional design smarter come to life? The answers will not be found in the silo of one discipline.
Involved BORA Institutions
Max Planck Institute for Collective Goods (MPI Collective Goods)
The ECONtribute researches the functioning of markets as well as reasons for their failure. In doing so, the cluster goes beyond traditional analyses by systematically combining model-based theoretical approaches and behavioral explanatory models while incorporating legal and political frameworks. Within the cluster, the Bonn Graduate School of Economics (BGSE) offers doctoral students a tailored structured doctoral program that includes an internationally recognized research network.
Involved BORA Institutions
Max Planck Institute for Collective Goods (MPI Collective Goods)
TRA Present Pasts
The six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) at the University of Bonn offer spaces for innovation in research and teaching. The TRA Present Pasts takes an interdisciplinary approach to the research of past cultural, political, social and economic constellations embedded in a broad geographical context and historical depth. Its work focuses on the interaction of contemporary challenges and processes and comparable phenomena in the past. The knowledge about the functioning of cultures generated by such a historical-comparative approach can lead to a better understanding of the present.
Many colleagues from BORA member institutions are active in the advisory bodies of the German government and European Union institutions and contribute scientific findings to the shaping of Germany and Europe.
Poliy Advice: From Bonn to Berlin and Brussels
The German federal government and its ministers are advised by experts from science, business and politics, who carry out this work in independent bodies with different forms, rules of procedure and legal bases. Their findings and recommendations are incorporated into the work of the federal government, for example in the creation and implementation of strategies. Many colleagues from BORA member institutions are active in the advisory bodies of the federal government and contribute scientific findings to the shaping of Germany.
The EU Commission, its Directorate-General and the European Parliament are increasingly relying on the advice of experts in the various phases of decision-making. In addition, high-level expert groups are also set up on designated topics, usually consisting of high-ranking representatives from civil society, business and academia, who formulate statements, assessments and proposals to the EU. Advice also flows from Bonn to Brussels.
Emerging Initiatives
From the staff unit for BORA, we support new initiatives that jointly promote topics relevant to Bonn as a science location.
In 2023, early career researchers and managers from BORA member institutions founded the Bonn Platform for Forced Migration Studies. Bonn is home to many experts working in the field of (forced) migration - in associations, international organizations, think tanks and universities. This expertise is pooled through various active formats and jointly expanded, particularly in the area of transdisciplinarity.
Learn more
Combined expertise in BORA
People in science need a good environment. The realization of an excellent, internationally flourishing scientific landscape on the Rhine with a global orientation and perspective is the common perspective in BORA.
Bonn Center of Reconciliation Studies
At the Center for Reconciliation Research, researchers from various disciplines in the humanities and text sciences work together to develop an empirically based concept of "reconciliation" and a theory to explain reconciliation processes.
Center for Development Research (ZEF)
Researchers at ZEF want to find scientifically sound solutions to promote sustainable development and the health of the planet.