Until 2025, the Center for Global Studies (CGS) was part of the Walter Benjamin Kolleg of the Faculty of the Humanities at the University of Bern. As a research center that deals with contemporary current and historical processes of interconnection and disconnection between different areas of human life across large geographical distances and different cultural contexts, it primarily pursued approaches from the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences in an interdisciplinary framework and through a series of public lectures and a doctoral program in Global and Transregional Studies.
The CGS is currently undergoing transformation as part of the university's Fit for Future initiative. The aim is to create flexible and dynamic structures that enable the visibility of the units to be increased, current scientific issues to be addressed, forward-looking research topics to be identified, and development opportunities to be explored.
With greater interdisciplinary connectivity, a promising research profile, (inter)national collaborations, and targeted support for young researchers, the new units will focus on the university's key areas of “Intercultural Knowledge,” “Transfer in Politics and Administration as well as Society and the Public,” “Interdisciplinarity,” and “Sustainability,” as well as to “national and international visibility.” The concept of interdisciplinary global studies will be maintained from an academic perspective, as evidenced by the continued existence of the doctoral program Global and Transregional Studies demonstrates.
The potential of the individual projects will be assessed in an evaluation phase lasting until the end of 2026 and further developed as part of the new performance mandate. Overview of the pilot projects:
