Since its establishment in 2020, ReCentGlobe has brought together humanities and social science expertise from more than 200 researchers who study global entanglements, social transformations, and the challenges of an increasingly interconnected world.
Since 2024, Nadin Heé has been Professor of the Global History of Modern Japan at Leipzig University. Her research lies at the intersection of imperial, knowledge and environmental history. She previously worked at the Max Planck Institute for the History of Science and at two centres for global history – Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Osaka. Fellowships and visiting professorships have also taken her to Kyoto and Tokyo Universities as well as to Academia Sinica in Taiwan.
“ReCentGlobe has written an impressive success story in a short span of time,” said the new director. “The centre is a key driver of interdisciplinary research in Leipzig — in the current DFG Funding Atlas, Leipzig University ranks among the top 15 nationwide in the humanities and social sciences. We now aim to build on this together with a new generation of researchers.”
The success of ReCentGlobe
In its first target agreement phase (2020–2024), the centre’s researchers raised more than €30 million in external funding for the University. During this period, ReCentGlobe served as an anchor for Collaborative Research Centre 1199 (Processes of Spatialization under the Global Condition), the Multiple Secularities Centre for Advanced Studies, and the Leipzig site of the Research Institute Social Cohesion, whose funding was most recently extended by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) until 2029. In addition, ReCentGlobe brings together numerous other projects in four focus areas: the analysis of new world orders and spatial transformations (Research Area 1); the study of social cohesion and populist movements (Research Area 2); the investigation of competing knowledge and value orders, from religious to secular epistemes (Research Area 3); and engagement with resource use, climate change and health from a global and planetary perspective (Research Area 4). In doing so, the centre creates a research environment of “national visibility”, as the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) concluded in its positive evaluation of the work programme for the new Global Hub research building. The building is currently under construction and scheduled for completion by the end of 2026.
Heé expressed her appreciation for the work of her predecessor: “My thanks go to Matthias Middell, who, with scholarly foresight and institutional leadership, has shaped globalisation research in Leipzig for decades and firmly anchored it in the international community. In his new role as Deputy Director, he has kindly agreed to coordinate the completion and commissioning of the Global Hub. I would also like to thank Christoph Kleine, who will continue to contribute to the directorate with his many years of experience in Leipzig’s internationally renowned research on multiple secularities and competing epistemes.”
“We now want,” Heé continued, “to make the Global Hub a beacon of interdisciplinary research – and to show why the humanities and social sciences are indispensable for better understanding, and helping shape, a rapidly changing world.”
