Research

The Faculty of Social and Cultural Sciences strives to take on contemporary societal and cultural problems, and to set an innovative and content-rich course in its fields of research, while helping to maintain Viadrina’s profile as a research university. Research and instruction in the bachelor’s degree and master‘s degree and doctoral programs are closely related.

A DFG doctoral program led by Anselm Haverkamp, dedicated to the research of the basis for social and cultural sciences, allows for the conferral of a doctorate in „Symbiogenesis and the Philosophy of Life“. A small doctoral program, taught solely by the faculty at Viadrina, on the topic of „Transnational Spaces“ is led by Stefan Krätke, Economic and Social Geographer, and Karl Schlögel, Eastern European Historian.

Of course, „Europe“ is a main focus of a “European University” . „Europe“ is understood to be an open and dynamic space. The spectrum of Europe reaches form the „bridge cities“ of Frankfurt (Oder) with its Viadrina, and Słubice with its Collegium Polonicum, to the cultural, political and economic role of Europe among world cultures, in the global marketplace, and in global politics. Between these two local and global poles, research and research-oriented instruction focus especially on European transnational regions; German-Polish relations; the West-East dynamic of an expanding Europe; and as a general rule, on the transformations, tensions and balances between rival nation-states in the difficult process of the „Europeanization of Europe“ through ideas, interests and institutions.