Top-level and High-potential Research Areas of JGU

Clear evidence of the diversity and interdisciplinary nature of the work being undertaken at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is provided by the fact that researchers here are active in so many different groups and projects. Particularly notable are the Top-level and High-potential Research Areas funded through the Research Initiative of the State of Rhineland-Palatinate.

Top-level Research Areas

Brought together in the Top-level Research Areas of JGU are internationally established working groups that have already produced excellent results over a longer period of time.

The Ministry of Science, Continuing Education, and Cultural Affairs of Rhineland-Palatinate (MWWK) is currently funding the following Top-level Research Areas at JGU:

• 40.000 Years of Human Challenges: Perception, Conceptualization and Coping in Premodern Societies (Challenges)
• Mainz Institute of Multiscale Modeling (M³ODEL)
• ReALity: Resilience, Adaptation and Longevity
• Sustainable Chemistry as the Key to Innovation in Resource-efficient Science in the Anthropocene (SusInnoScience)
• TopDyn – Topology and Dynamics

High-potential Research Areas

Researchers in JGU's High-potential Research Area teams collaborate to develop new research concepts that could well make an essential contribution to enhancing the university's profile in the future.

Currently, the MWWK is funding the following eight High-potential Research Areas of JGU:

• Center for Intercultural Studies (ZIS)
• Disruption and Democracy in America: Challenges and Potentials of Transcultural and Transnational Formations (OBAMA Institute)
• Research Center of Social and Cultural Studies Mainz (SOCUM)
• Center for Research on Schools, Education, and Higher Education (ZSBH)
• Figurations of the Nation in the Early Modern Period: Transfer Spaces – Contact Zones – Media (The Nation in the Early Modern Period)
• Interdisciplinary Public Policy (IPP)
• Positive Learning at Risk in the Age of Information (PLATO)
• Terrestrial Magmatic Systems (TeMaS)

Because the first three High-potential Research Areas – Obama Institute, SOCUM and ZIS – conduct research in related fields, the plan in the medium term is to merge them into a single platform for cultural studies and social sciences.