Research at the Faculty
Research at the Faculty
Agile Research Structures
In collaborative research, the Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology relies on Agile Research Structures. Within this flexible system, the faculty offers all its members who wish to conduct collaborative research at the faculty greater transparency, better visibility, and a straightforward support system.
Associations of researchers at the faculty who want to conduct joint research on a topic and have already completed their first joint publications, projects and events.
Research forums at the faculty:
Diversität und Globalisierung in der Antike
Interdisciplinary associations of researchers at the faculty who want to conduct joint research on a topic, who have already published together on a regular basis, and who can demonstrate initial success in obtaining funding for competitive joint projects.
Research fields at the faculty:
Bildung und Transformation (BiTra)
Dimensions of Consturctional Space
Digital Cultural Spaces (DiCuS)
Literatur und Öffentlichkeit in differenten Gegenwartskulturen
Interdisciplinary associations of researchers at the faculty who have been successfully researching and publishing together for several years.
There is currently no research focus registered at the faculty.
In general, registering an agile research structure is possible under the following conditions:
- All researchers of the faculty can register one of the formats. Registrations are possible at any time.
- Each format always requires active research cooperation.
- Each format is associated with specific funding formats.
Interdisciplinary Centres
The faculty also has a long tradition of active and vibrant Interdisciplinary Centres respectively central research institutions, which create discursive spaces for longer-term and broader thematic complexes in research, teaching, and outreach. They are central to interfaculty communication. The FAU Interdisciplinary Centres related to research in the humanities, social sciences and cultural studies at the faculty are:
IZ Digital is committed to the promotion of digital humanities and social sciences. This is done in particular by supporting and conducting joint events and projects in the fields of research, teaching and further education. IZ Digital cooperates with relevant institutions in the region as well as with national and international institutions. A central concern of the centre is the promotion of young scientists in the field of digital humanities and social sciences.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Sciences, Faculty of Engineering
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Digitale Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften
IMZ sees itself as an alliance of all media-related subjects and study courses at the Friedrich Alexander University Erlangen-Nuremberg: book science, Christian journalism, Christian and Classical archeology, communication science, art history, multimediadidactics and theatre and media sciences as well as subjects in which, due to the increasing relevance of media for questions of knowledge communication and didactics, there is an interest in the integration of mediality into aspects of research and teaching, such as English, German and historical studies. At hardly any other German university, media-related institutes and study courses are represented in this broad range. Media-related studies are now one of the most widely frequented at the FAU, so that a wide cooperation in research and teaching within the framework of the IMZ also provides urgently needed impulses for questions of academic training in this still booming sector. The underlying concept of media is deliberately not limited to the technology-based media and therefore also provides a wide range of connectivity options in diachronic terms.
The joint work in the IMZ serves the systematic and didactic exchange in a media-comparative perspective, the planning and carrying out of joint research projects and events as well as the cooperation in the study offer and in the promotion of scientific advancement. The IMZ explicitly promotes its own interdisciplinary research initiatives and integrates this into joint research activities. The members of the IMZ are also involved in the internal and external initiatives of the FAU, as well as in cooperation with local and regional media and cultural institutions and their events.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology
ICA was founded in order to strengthen the interdisciplinary cooperation within the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in the field of aging research, thus improving political counselling and the targeted representation of the concerns of the elderly in the public. The objectives of ICA are:
- The initiation of new research projects with gerontological relevance
- The implementation of relevant research results into practice and the public
- The promotion of cooperation with other relevant national and international organisations
- An institutionalisation of research co-operation and research projects at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg in cooperation with corresponding regional gerontological institutions and other universities and research institutes.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, School of Business and Economics, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Engineering
The objective and task of the IZD are to promote research and teaching in the areas of dialectology, language variation and language research. One of the focal points of the IZD is the regular exchange of experiences between the linguists at FAU in the fields of dialectology, variation linguistics and research in the evolution of language.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Sciences, Faculty of Engineering
The Interdisciplinary Centre Gender – Difference – Diversity (IZGDD) is designed to combine and advance existing research interests of participating disciplines. Its main objective is to
• join together gender-, difference- and diversity-related interests, activities and expertise,
• promote interdisciplinary cooperation,
• identify and explore relevant fields of research and
• develop a suitable methodology for their exploration.
Research combines the (primarily) analytical approaches of historical, literary and sociological disciplines with more application-oriented methods, e.g. in the legal or medical field.
The Interdisciplinary Centre for Research on Lexicography, Valency and Collocation aims to link and coordinate research carried out in different departments of the Friedrich-Alexander-University of Erlangen/Nürnberg. It focuses on the description and analysis of words in larger linguistic chunks such as multi-word lexical units or grammatical units.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Engineering
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Lexikografie, Valenz- und Kollokationsforschung
The aim of the IZEMIR is to coordinate and promote the Middle Ages and Renaissance studies in Erlangen, which traditionally form part of the university’s main focus.Erlangen Medieval Studies are characterized by a wide range of subjects, including English Studies, Christian Archeology, German Studies, History, Medieval History, Oriental Studies, Medieval History, Neologism, Philosophy, Romance Studies and Theology. IZEMIR focuses on the European culture of the Middle Ages as a process and identity-creating interaction.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Engineering
Interdisziplinäres Zentrum für Europäische Mittelalter- und Renaissancestudien
IZÄB aims to raise the aesthetic dimension of education as an object of research and teaching. Through joint projects, the possibilities of aesthetic education are to be explored as specific modes of world reception, of dealing with others and of personality development. To this end, processes of aesthetic perception, design and aesthetic judgment are examined in cooperation between different faculties of different faculties. Particular attention is given to the promotion of aesthetic education in practice.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Medicine
IZG brings together the various research initiatives at the faculty, which deal with contemporary literature and culture. Interfaces can be found in almost all areas of the faculty: German Studies, Romance Studies, Slavic Studies, Islamic Studies, Sinology or Theatre and Media Studies, just to name a few.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology
The Labor and Socio-Economic Research Centre (LASER) is an interdisciplinary centre composed of a variety of departments within the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg as well as from research institutions outside of the university. Its mission is to design and to promote common research, teaching, and consulting projects. LASER is a joint initiative of the University and the Institute for Employment Research at Nuremberg. Its website offers information about research projects, teaching activities, publications, and other activities.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law
The interdisciplinary work of the FAU Research Center for Human Rights Erlangen-Nürnberg focuses on current questions regarding human rights in theory and in practice. In a regional context, the center investigates the human rights requirements for politics in Bavaria. FAU CHREN campaigns for the innovative development of international human rights protection while considering contemporary discourse and developments. The aim of FAU CHREN’s work is to strengthen the protection of human rights and to drive forward the universal implementation of these rights.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law, Faculty of Medicine
With the founding of the Centre for Euro-Oriental Studies (CEOS), FAU bundles the forces of its traditionally strong oriental and Islamic disciplines. The goal is to strengthen Erlangen’s contribution to Near East research with an innovative research approach.
The CEOS unites cross-faculty experts from the Near East and Islam research in the fields of humanities and cultural sciences, medication history, law and economics, social sciences and theologies.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Sciences, School of Law
The interdisciplinary research-centre ELINAS aims at creating an institutionalized infrastructure for research, dedicated to the reciprocal transfer of knowledge between physics and literature. The centre is concerned with the importance of language and metaphors in physical research as well as with discursive and narrative modulations of scientific theories in literary texts.
Participating faculties: Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology, Faculty of Sciences
Further Information
Information on registration, formats and related funding measures can be found on the FAUbox* (folder: Dean’s Office – Office for Research). Please send your application directly to the Office for Research and Young Researchers. We also are happy to answer any questions you may have.