Eighteen collaborative projects will contribute to research excellence across the arts and humanities through an ongoing collaboration between the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation) and the UK Research and Innovation’s Arts and Humanities Research Council (AHRC).
The DFG is investing more than €8 million in the projects through the fifth annual funding opportunity with AHRC, which is providing matching funding of over £6 million. This will bring the two funders’ ongoing programme of collaboration since 2018 to a total of 94 awards.
Through the discovery-led model adopted for this programme, researchers are empowered to pursue areas of international research significance as identified through their own work.
The projects funded this year cover a wide and diverse range of topics from land ownership to post-industrial marginalisation. Several projects will utilise humanities methodologies to boost new understanding of scientific research fields, such as computing, medical sciences and historic cultural responses to scientific change.
The AHRC-DFG funding programme has been foundational in developing research relations between the UK and Germany. The DFG signed an overarching memorandum of understanding with UK Research and Innovation (UKRI), of which AHRC is a part, earlier this year building on the success of the programme so far and the way in which it has created opportunities for research excellence.
The current bilateral funding agreement covers a total of eight opportunities. The sixth opportunity is open for applications until 20 February 2024.
Projects funded (alphabetical order):
- Amalgamating Evidence about Causes: Medicine, the Medical Sciences, and Beyond
German PI: Professor Stephan Hartmann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
UK PI: Professor Jacob Mori Stegenga (University of Cambridge)
Discipline: Philosophy - ‘Bartmann Goes Global’ – the Cultural Impact of an Iconic Object in the Early Modern Period
German PIs: Professor Natascha Mehler (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen); Professor Michael Schmauder (LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn)
UK PI: Jacqui Pearce (MOLA – Museum of London Archaeology)
Discipline: Archaeology - Elias Canetti and the British in a European Context: Reception, Exile, Appropriation
German PI: Professor Sven Hanuschek (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
UK PI: Professor Julian Preece (University of Swansea)
Discipline: Languages and Literature - Human Rights in Global Supply Chains: Measuring the Effectiveness of Home State Regulatory Models on Corporate Behavior
German PI: Professor Andreas Rühmkorf (Westfälische Hochschule Gelsenkirchen Bocholt Recklinghausen)
UK PI: Dr Irene Pietropaoli (British Institute of International and Comparative Law, London)
Discipline: Law and Legal Studies - Land and Loyalty: The Politics of Land in the Later Roman World (4th–6th c.)
German PI: Professor Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)
UK PI: Dr Carlos Machado (University of St Andrews)
Discipline: History - Medieval Vernacular Bibles as Unity, Diversity and Conflict. Bible Translations as Anti-Heretical or Anti-Clerical Move?
German PI: Professor Freimut Löser (Universität Augsburg)
UK PI: Dr Elizabeth Solpova (University of Oxford)
Discipline: Languages and Literature - Mixed-Methods Digital Oral History: Enfolding Semantic Web Technologies and Historical-Interpretative Analysis to Better Understand Narratives of Formation, Disruption and Change in the History of Computing in the Humanities
German PI: Professor Julianne Nyhan (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
UK PI: Dr Andreas Vlachidis (University College London)
Discipline: History - Pastoralists Lost: Pioneer Equine and Ruminant Herders of the Central Asian Steppes and Their Role in Early Horse Husbandry
German PI: Professor Cheryl Makarewicz (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)
UK PI: Professor Alan Outram (University of Exeter)
Discipline: Archaeology - Positing or Predicating? Existence after Kant
German PI: Professor Dolf Rami (Ruhr-Universität Bochum)
UK PI: Professor Mark Textor (King’s College London)
Discipline: Philosophy - Reframing Arrival. Transnational Perspectives on Perceptions, Governance, and Forced Migrants’ Practices from 2015/16–2022/23
German PIs: Professor Birgit Glorius (Technische Universität Chemnitz); Dr Annegret Haase (Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung – UFZ, Leipzig)
UK PI: Dr Giovanna Astolfo (University College London)
Discipline: Human Geography - Rituals, Rubbish and Retrieval: New Approaches to Roman River Finds
German PIs: Professor Eckhard Deschler-Erb (Universität zu Köln); Dr Ferdinand Daniel Heimerl (Universität Trier)
UK PI: Professor Hella Eckardt (University of Reading)
Discipline: Archaeology - Scientific Poetry and Poetics in Britain and Germany, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
German PIs: Professor Florian Klaeger (Universität Bayreuth); Professor Hania Siebenpfeiffer
(Philipps-Universität Marburg)
UK PI: Professor Kevin Killeen (University of York)
Discipline: Languages and Literature - Sensory Engineering: Investigating Altered and Guided Perception and Hallucination
German PI: Professor Sascha Benjamin Fink (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg)
UK PI: Dr Derek Brown (University of Glasgow)
Discipline: Philosophy - Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA) – Principles, Tools and Institutions of Digital Regulation in the UK, Germany and the EU
German PI: Professor Rupprecht Podszun (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
UK PI: Professor Oles Andriychuk (University of Newcastle)
Discipline: Law and legal studies - Subjectivities of Owning Land (SoL): Land Redistribution and the Nation State in the Baltics Across the 20th Century
German PI: Privatdozentin Heidi Hein-Kircher (Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung, Marburg)
UK PI: Dr Klaus Richter (University of Birmingham)
Discipline: History - The Syntax of Nominal Copular Clauses: Theoretical and Empirical Perspectives
German PI: Professor Jutta M. Hartmann (Universität Bielefeld)
UK PI: Professor Caroline Heycock (University of Edinburgh)
Discipline: Linguistics - Take Me and Make It Happen! How-to-Books from the Ferguson Collection and Corresponding Holdings at the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel
German PI: Privatdozent Dr. Stefan Laube (Herzog August Bibliothek, Wolfenbüttel)
UK PI: Dr Laurence Grove (University of Glasgow)
Discipline: History - Voices from the Periphery: (De-)Constructing and Contesting Public Narratives about Post-Industrial Marginalization
German PI: Dr Anke Fiedler (Universität Greifswald)
UK PI: Dr Antje Glück (Bournemouth University)
Discipline: Media Studies
Further Information
Press release on the signing of an overarching memorandum of understanding between the DFG and UKRI:
The call documents for the current sixth DFG/AHRC call can be found on the AHRC website:
DFG-specific information on the current call:
Lead responsibility for the administration of calls rotates between the AHRC and the DFG. The AHRC is leading the administration of the sixth call and should therefore be the first point of contact for general enquiries relating to the call.
United Kingdom, AHRC:
Germany, DFG: