Research

Currently two programmes supporting junior researchers are located at UDE’s Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST). The BMBF-funded “IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies” analyses the process of technical innovation in East Asia; it assumes that innovations are not solely technological, but must be embedded in institutions if they are to evolve and spread. Another project hosted by IN-EAST is the DFG Research Training Group 1613 “Risk and East Asia”, already in its second funding period. Exploring how responsibility for risks in East Asia shifts between the market, politics and family, the doctoral projects produce new insights into the universality and specificity of institutional change in East Asia.

Research in the area of “Transnational Labour Markets” also benefits from the traditionally strong comparative social and transnational labour research in the Faculty of Social Sciences and in the Institute for Work, Skills and Training (IAQ). The junior research group “Migration and social policy: studies on governance, development and use of (local) social policy in the context of refugee migration”, hosted at the IAQ and funded by the Federal Ministry of Labour and Social Affairs, continues to explain how local authorities deal with the social needs of migrants (especially refugees), and how migrants use the services of the welfare state.

Research on governance and migration is strongly characterised by a comparative international perspective. For members of our main research area, the Käte Hamburger Kolleg – Centre for Global Cooperation Research and the InZentIM (Interdisciplinary Centre for Integration and Migration Research) are fundamental for building a research profile in these domains. In 2019, KHK and PSP Wandel organized their first joint annual conference on “Interdisciplinary Perspectives on Global Cooperation Research”, which also promoted networking among UDE’s relevant members.

Since 2017, UDE’s Institute of Sociology has been an associated partner of the “International Max Planck Research School on the Social and Political Constitution of the Economy” (IMPRS-SPCE). IMPRS-SPCE is a joint international doctoral programme in economic sociology and political economy run by the Max Planck Institute for the Study of Societies and the University of Cologne’s Faculty of Economic and Social Sciences, with a research focus on the foundations of modern economies and the interplay between economic and social action. UDE’s faculty members at IMPRS-SPCE (Professors Sigrid Quack and Karen Shire) have been joined by Prof. Till van Treeck from UDE´s Institute of Socio-Economics.