About Us

Interdisciplinary research „is a high-risk, high-reward endeavor“(Leahey, Beckmann & Stanko, 2016)

Interdisciplinary research has the potential to address complex current societal problems, such as sustainability, digitalisation, globalisation and social inequality, by integrating the knowledge and expertise of different scientific disciplines through innovative approaches to problems and its solutions. It can also increase the impact and transfer of research results across disciplinary boundaries. This potential and the associated demand for interdisciplinary research is expressed in research funding - for example in the funding lines - and is now also an explicit component of the guiding principle in Leibniz Universität Hannover's overall strategy 2031: "Think globally, research interdisciplinarily, live Leibniz".

Interdisciplinary research is a challenging endeavour. While the development of theory and methods, discourse and the transfer of knowledge typically take place in disciplinary structures and scientific communities, successful interdisciplinarity requires the connection of these differentiated spheres. On the one hand, it needs to be clearly positioned in the disciplines, and at the same time openness to alternative disciplinary perspectives. The precondition for this kind of problem definition and its solutions is an integrative, cooperative and co-constructive production of knowledge and insights, in trusting and reliable working and communication structures.

Under the umbrella of the Centre, the (sub-)disciplines involved in its foundation will bundle already established cooperation structures of the educational, social, economic and technical sciences. On the one hand, the content-related orientation "Education, Knowledge and Innovation", which gives the centre its name, refers to the disciplinary key concepts of the partners participating in the centre. On the other hand, they provide multi-thematic connection possibilities for a context of action that is to be developed and bundled in an integrative way.

The Centre "Education, Knowledge, Innovation" offers scientists from various disciplines at national and international institutions a platform for such synergetic cooperation. One focus is on linking research activities in the humanities and natural sciences.

• Establishment of exchange platforms and opportunities for the joint development of ideas for researchers from different disciplines and institutions
• Consolidation and expansion of existing interdisciplinary research collaborations
• Initiation of new interdisciplinary research collaborations to identify and solve problems
• Development and implementation of innovative research projects
• Promoting the transfer of scientific knowledge
• Opening up interdisciplinary research fields for young scientists and scholars

In order to achieve its objectives, the Centre establishes supportive structures for interdisciplinary exchange, for example through regular open-topic and topic-focused workshops. Existing and newly initiated collaborations are located under the umbrella of the Centre as topic-focused research groups and can make their own activities visible here as well as receive impulses from other disciplines. In this sense, the Centre sees itself as an open, multi-thematic structure. Through the fellowships awarded, the participants actively contribute to the scientific and thematic orientation of the Centre.