History

Emerging from the Graduiertenkolleg “Das Neue Europa”, the Berlin Graduate School of Social Sciences has been founded in 2002. For a five-year period the BGSS has been a pilot project by the German Academic Exchange Service (German Deutsche Akademische Austauschdienst). In 2007 the Graduate School became an integral part of the Department of Social Sciences at Humboldt University Berlin. Since November 2007 the doctoral program is funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments.

Research areas

Research at the BGSS is focused on the comparative analysis of social inclusion and democratic performance of modern societies. Recently, the role of knowledge in democratic societies has been added as a third research focus.

Varieties of inclusion

This research area is concerned with the question whether and how modern societies are able to cope with contemporary problems of inclusion and exclusion, discrimination and diversity, heterogeneity and individualization. Topics are:

Varieties of democracy

This research area looks at the conditions of the establishment, stability and development of democratic structures in modern societies. Topics are:

Varieties of knowledge

This research area is concerned with the role of scientific and non-scientific knowledge in the reproduction of democratic societies. Topics include:

  • Scientific knowledge in processes of policy-making
  • The impact of science on processes of inclusion and democratization
  • Communicating knowledge in public spheres
  • The governance of science

Networks

The BGSS collaborates with the following non-university research institutions exchanging doctoral and senior researchers.

The BGSS is host university of European PhD in Socio-Economic and Statistical Studies (SESS.EuroPhD), a consortium of European universities awarding the Doctor Europeus or European PhD. Since 2010, Craig Calhoun is Einstein Visiting Fellow at BGSS.

Selection of faculty members

Doctoral researcher activities

In 2010 doctoral researchers of BGSS and WZB organized the “Berlin Summer School in Social Sciences – Linking Theory and Empirical Research”. They also publish an Online Working Paper Series.

References

    Sources

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