Centre for Advanced Studies (ZHS)

Research Activities at the Centre

The Centre for Advanced Studies (ZHS) was founded in 1994 as a central institution of the University of Leipzig in order to develop and coordinate interdisciplinary projects. For this purpose the ZHS establishes temporary project groups and links them to PhD-study programmes and international Master- and In-Service-Training programmes. Cooperation with extra-university research institutions is of particular importance, together with which cooperative research networks, postgraduate training units, conferences and workshops are organised.

The Centre runs an international visiting scholars programme within which the Leibniz-chair (filled with a leading foreign scholar every semester) is of particular importance. In 2006 the guest professorship was held by the linguist Georg Kremnitz from the University of Vienna and the philosopher Kristof Nyiri., who both made important contributions to the training of postgraduates at the Centre. More then 120 visiting senior and junior scholars have spent shorter or longer stays at the Center in 2006. Important criteria for the selection for the visiting scholars programme from among applicants are the innovative impulse of their approach, the possibility for integration into the project groups' work, the expected fruitfulness of the discussions, and the projected benefits for the PhD-students.
In the past few years, the ZHS has established itself as a distinguished place in graduate and postgraduate education. The performance of postgraduate students is certified by the ZHS, and its certificate is recognised by the University’s faculties within the framework of doctoral degree award. In 2006, the Centre hosted five postgraduate research training units supported by the National Research Foundation DFG and two international PhD-programmes, funded by the German Academic Exchange Office DAAD) with a total of over 200 students coming from 37 countries in the world. In 2006 the new postgraduate research training unit “Critical Junctures of Globalisation” started its activities with the selection of 14 PhD-students.

The ZHS granted € 4,92 Mio of funding from outside the University. More than € 1 Mio was received from the EU-programme Erasmus Mundus for the European Master Global Studies, a common Master programme with the London School of Economics and the universities of Vienna and Wroclaw. More then 29 conferences and 20 workshops, all of them with international speakers, have been held during the year 2006 at the Center for Advanced Study which develops more and more into the direction of a truly transnational institution organising research and training programmes with universities abroad.
With its activities the ZHS has contributed to profiling the University, leading within the framework of the Federal Government’s competition for excellence, to the application for the formation of Research Clusters and Graduate Schools, with the project groups and research training programmes established at the ZHS prominently integrated into the University’s performance.

A particular contribution by the ZHS is made in the fields of applying mathematical procedures in the natural sciences; combining linguistic, cognitive and brain research; investigating cultural and historical phenomena of transnationalisation and globalisation and considering the influence of social factors on health. With the two International Postgraduate Training Programmes “From Signal Processing to Behaviour” and “Transnationalisation and Regionalisation since the 18th Century”, a far-reaching integration of very different subject areas and institutions in interdisciplinary training networks has been accomplished. Therefore the PhD-study progranmes at the Center became pillars of the newly established Research Academy Leipzig. The European Master “Global Studies” has developed into a model of European cooperation in teaching also including partners from outside Europe.

Centre for Theoretical Studies applied to the Sciences (NTZ)

The Centre for Theoretical Studies applied to the Sciences (NTZ) was founded in 1973 by representatives from the mathematical, physical, chemical and biological sciences. The NTZ supports interdisciplinary work in the area of scientific and theoretical research. Its aim is to counter the general process of specialisation in the separate disciplines by applying different mechanisms for integration (usually founded in methodological arguments), and to make the rising complexity (among others, of mathematical systems), manageable for the natural scientist.

Work is divided into project groups with the following specialisations: "Strongly Correlated Electron Systems", "Theoretical Calculation of Chemical Reactions in Molecular and Polymer Structures ", "Mathematical and Computer Science Aspects of Complex Symbolic Software Systems", "Stochastics and Structure Formation", "Quantum Groups and Noncommutative Geometry", "Schuranalysis", and "Computational Sciences ".
Postgraduate studies take actually place in a postgraduate research training unit on "Analysis, Geometry, and Interaction with the Natural Sciences". The NTZ-Colloquium with papers by 15 guests (mostly from non-resident scholars) and the lecture series "Mitteldeutsche Physik-Combo" were very successful. The close collaboration of the NTZ with the Max-Planck-Institute for Mathematics in the Sciences in the areas of graduate and postgraduate study and research was continued.

The Centre for French Studies (FrZ)

The Centre for French Studies (FrZ) offers a place for interdisciplinary and international discussion to researchers and scholars from our university and to partners from the region that deal with France and the French-speaking world in teaching and research. The physical closeness to and the close collaboration with the Institut Français de Leipzig serve to further this goal. So does the co operation with the Quebec-Archive and the Independent Study Centre FRAN-Z, which are housed in the same building with the Centre for French Studies. Fields of interest in the Centre range from the conception and organisation of workshops, conferences, and lecture series to responsibilities in teaching and continuing education (a recently opened MA in European Studies and the MA. minor French Studies as well as the French Summer University) and to its central task of studying France and its relationship with the world. In 2006, research focused especially on the language policies in Western and South Eastern Europe and the role of cultural transfers in transnational history.

Apart from the publications in the Centre for French Studies Series and the "German-French Cultural Library/Deutsch-Französische Kulturbibliothek", the centre also edits the journal Grenzgänge. Beiträge zu einer modernen Romanistik (www.unileipzig. de/zhs/zhs/publikat/grenz/index. htm).

Since September 2004 the Internet portal “transnational.history” has been edited by the Center. This Internet portal is an electronic journal for the historical sciences within the framework of the H-Net (H-Soz+Kult) and Clio-online. It is essentially based on the close cooperation with the CNRS in Paris. It has attracted until now more than 2.500 subscribers, thus having developed into an internationally renowned source of information about current developments in the newly established field of transnational history.

The Centre for Humanities and Social Sciences (GSZ)

The close connection of interdisciplinary project groups, invitation of visiting scholars, postgraduate training and transnationally organised Master programmes characterises the activities of the Centre for the Humanities and Social Sciences (GSZ), which was founded in 1994. In 2006 project groups focused on the following topics: “Propertisation”, “Communicative Understanding”, International Studies”, “Global History and Transnationalisation” as well as the recently established group on “Tolerance as principle of ordering”. The International PhD-study programme “Transnationalisation and Regionalisation since the 18th century”(created in 2001- see for further details www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/phd) is now complemented by a postgraduate research training unit on “Critical Junctures of Globalisation”, while the European Master “Global Studies” (www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/global_studies) pursue its successful development within the framework of the Erasmus Mundus programme cooperating with universities in London, Vienna, Wroclaw, Dalhousie, Santa Barbara, Stellenbosch and Sydney. 76 PhD-students and 39 Master students from 34 countries from all over the world have studied at the Center in 2006. With the interdisciplinary study-abroad-programme “Europe in the World” the Centre offered for the first time a summer institute which answers to the specific needs of international students.).

The GSZ participates in a programme of the European Science Foundation "National Histories in Europe" (NHIST), funded from 2003 to 2008. The GSZ is in particular responsible for the area "National Histories and its Interrelation with Regional European and World Histories" (www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/esf-nhist), working closely together with the team dealing with "Overlapping National Histories" at the Centre of East Central European History and Culture in Leipzig. Within the framework of the DFG priority programme "Science, Politics and Society. Germany in the International Context in the Late 19th and the 20th Century: People, Institutions, Discourses", the Centre, together with scholars from the University of Hamburg, works on "Representations of Africa and Latin America in the European Scientific Cultures. Concepts and Functions of Latin America and Africa in Germany's Modern Humanities in Comparison with Western and East Central Europe 1945-2000". Furthermore, together with scholars from the Humboldt University in Berlin and the German Museum in Munich, the GSZ was awarded a grant for a research network funded by the Federal Ministry of Technology, Science and Education to study the “Construction of the Homo Europaeus during the 20th century” which will likewise strengthen the research basis for global history at the centre. Within the thematic field of propertysation studies the project group at the GSZ organised in 2006 an international workshop and a related publication as last step towards an application for DFG funding for an interdisciplinary project "Ongoing propertisation in modern times ", drawing together scholars from Leipzig and Dresden at the GSZ. The project group “Structures of Communication” prepared with its scientific activities in 2006 two applications for the funding of international networks on “Inferential foundations of logic and meaning” and on “Structures of knowledge”.

The GSZ edits the journal Comparativ. Zeitschrift für Globalgeschichte und vergleichende Gesellschaftsforschung (http://www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/comp/index.htm) and the book series “Geschichtswissenschaft und Geschichtskultur im 20. Jahrhundert“, “Transnationalisation and Regionalisation“ and – recently established with a first volume on “1956 – European and Global Perspectives” – on “Global History and International Studies”.

The Centre for Cognitive Studies (ZfK)

The Centre for Cognitive Studies (ZjK) was founded in 1996 as the fourth unit of the Centre for Advanced Studies. Its establishment serves to c/ose a gap in the German academic lQ/idscape by providing scholars, junior researchers, and scientists from different jields an opportunity for interdisciplinary cooperation and the exchange of knowledge beyond the boundaries of their own specialisation.

Cognitive science is concerned with the correlation between brain fimction and behaviour. It deals primarily with perception, learning, and language, with the acquisition and the use of knowledge, and with the structure of memory and knowledge representation. Neurocognition specifically studies the connection between mind and brain, a rapidly growing international field at the intersection between cognitive psychology and neurosciences. Neurocognition tries to better understand those processes in the brain that determine cognitive activities, such as perception, thinking, and language. It also analyses their dependence on neuronal processes. In order to approach and to adequately describe those processes, neurocognition develops models with the help of which perception, thinking, and language can be put into a relationship to neuronal mechanisms in the brain or to artificial systems.

The training of postgraduates at the ZfK is organised in Research Training Groups funded by the DFG, on "Universality and Diversity: Linguistic Structures and Processes" (since 1997) and on “Function of Attention in Cognition” (since 2005) (www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/teilzentren/zfk). In the International Postgraduate Training Programme "From Signal Processing to Behaviour" (www.uni-leipzig.de/zhs/ipp), the centre is represented in two out of four research groups, on "Cognitive Processes in the Human Brain" and on "Neuronal and Interneuronal Communication". The Sofija Kovaleskaja Prize accorded by the Alexander-von-Humboldt-Foundation to Dr. Tricia Striano was used to establish a ZfK-based research group for Neurocognition and Development
Two international conferences have been held in 2006 at the ZfK on Neurobiology of Audition and on Structures and Functions of Oscillations.

The Centre for Prevention and Rehabilitation (ZPR)

The Centre for Prevention and Rehabilitation (ZPR) began its work in June 2003. Its foundation reflects an increased recognition of prevention and rehabilitation in medical research and treatment. The Centre's research focuses on the demand for as well as the quality and the effectiveness of preventive and rehabilitative measures and services in the health-care system. Another focus lies on economical evaluation and the development of new preventive strategies. Research projects form the basis for inter-faculty collaborative research.

In the area of interdisciplinary postgraduate training, the ZPR participates in the International Postgraduate Training Programme "From Signal Processing to Behaviour" together with the Centre for Cognitive Studies, the Max-Planck-Institute for Neuropsychological Research and Evolutionary Anthropology, and the Faculties of Biosciences, Pharmacy and Psychology, Sport Science, Social Sciences, and Medicine.
More than 60 prevention and rehabilitation related projects have meanwhile be identified within the Medical Faculty and its partner institutions in Leipzig, which are of importance for the further work of the ZPR which is organised in four research groups on cancer, adipositas, psychological damage and sports medicine.
Further activities of the ZPR comprise both regularly held research colloquia on “Public Mental Health” and seminars as well as an annual symposium on current topics from health economy.