Research

The strength of the Faculty of Humanities’ research profile lies in both outstanding individual research and research alliances. Faculty members act as spokespersons in all of the programs coordinated by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG), such as collaborative research centers (SFB), research groups (FG), and research training groups (GRK). They also serve as principal investigators in the European Research Council’s scientific excellence programs, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, and the DFG’s Heisenberg and Emmy Noether Programs.

Recently the Cluster of Excellence "Understanding Written Artefacts: Material, Interaction and Transmission in Manuscript Cultures" has been approved. It is part of the core research area Manuscript Cultures. The Faculty of Humanities at Universität Hamburg currently has 3 emerging fields: The Early Modern World, Grounds, Causes, Reasons, and Contemporary Cultures of Memory. Moreover, the Faculty of Humanities at Universität Hamburg has 4 profile initiatives: Linguistic Diversity, Violence and Security, Thought and Religions, and Modeling Nature. In 2017, The German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) explicitly praised the achievement of these research endeavors in its recommendations for the development of the humanities, social sciences, and the University’s strategy as a whole (Empfehlungen zur Weiterentwicklung der Geistes- und Sozialwissenschaften sowie der Gesamtstrategie der Universität Hamburg).