Eighteen collaborative projects will contribute to research excellence across the arts and humanities through an ongoing collaboration between UK Research and Innovation’s (UKRI) AHRC and DFG.
AHRC is investing more than £6 million in the projects through the fifth annual funding opportunity with DFG, which is providing match funding of over €8 million.
This will bring the two funders’ ongoing programme of collaboration since 2018 to a total of 94 awards.
Discovery-led model
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 research fields, such as computing, medical sciences and poetry responding to historic scientific developments
Addressing future challenges
Other projects will focus on an area of continuously emerging strategic interest, intergenerational justice, which looks at how to address future challenges through learning about our past.
Many of the projects funded in this round are being hosted by independent research organisations, including:
- the Museum of London Archaeology
- the British Institute of International and Comparative Law
- the Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel
Developing research relations
The AHRC-DFG funding programme has been foundational in developing research relations between the UK and Germany.
UKRI signed an overarching memorandum of understanding with DFG earlier this year.
It builds on the success of the programme so far and the way in which it has created opportunities for research excellence.
An inspiring example
AHRC Executive Chair Professor Christopher Smith said:
The AHRC-DFG awards are an inspiring example of new approaches forged through international collaboration which bring together talented researchers to pursue a varied, bold programme of research.
The projects and our ongoing partnership with DFG underline the importance of the collaboration between UK and Germany.
Through these awards, our collective expertise is broadening our knowledge in areas of international significance for the arts and humanities, and scientific research more generally.
The current bilateral funding agreement covers a total of eight funding opportunities.
The sixth funding opportunity is open for applications until 20 February 2024.
Further information
Projects funded (alphabetical order)
Amalgamating evidence about causes: medicine, the medical sciences, and beyond
UK principal investigator: Professor Jacob Mori Stegenga (University of Cambridge)
German principal investigator: Professor Stephan Hartmann (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Discipline: philosophy
‘Bartmann Goes Global’: the cultural impact of an iconic object in the early modern period
UK principal investigator: Ms Jacqui Pearce (Museum of London Archaeology)
German principal investigators:
- Professor Natascha Mehler (Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen)
- Professor Michael Schmauder (LVR-LandesMuseum Bonn)
Discipline: archaeology
Elias Canetti and the British in a European context: reception, exile, appropriation
UK principal investigator: Professor Julian Preece (University of Swansea)
German principal investigator: Professor Sven Hanuschek (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München)
Discipline: languages and literature
Human rights in global supply chains: measuring the effectiveness of home state regulatory models on corporate behaviour
UK principal investigator: Dr Irene Pietropaoli (British Institute of International and Comparative Law)
German principal investigator: Professor Andreas Rühmkorf (Westfälische Hochschule)
Discipline: law and legal studies
Land and loyalty: the politics of land in the later Roman world (4th to 6th century)
UK principal investigator: Dr Carlos Machado (University of St Andrews)
German principal investigator: Professor Sebastian Schmidt-Hofner, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen
Discipline: history
Medieval vernacular bibles as unity, diversity and conflict. Bible-translations as anti-heretical or anti-clerical move?
UK principal investigator: Dr Elizabeth Solpova (University of Oxford)
German principal investigator: Professor Freimut Löser, Universität Augsburg
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
UK principal investigator: Dr Andreas Vlachidis (University College London)
German principal investigator: Professor Julianne Nyhan (Technische Universität Darmstadt)
Discipline: history
Pastoralists lost: pioneer equine and ruminant herders of the central Asian Steppes and their role in early horse husbandry
UK principal investigator: Professor Alan Outram (University of Exeter)
German principal investigator: Professor Cheryl Makarewicz (Christian-Albrechts-Universität zu Kiel)
Discipline: archaeology
Positing or predicating? Existence after Kant
UK principal investigator: Professor Mark Textor (King’s College London)
German principal investigator: Professor Dolf Rami, Ruhr-Universität Bochum
Discipline: philosophy
Reframing arrival. Transnational perspectives on perceptions, governance, and forced migrants’ practices from 2015 to 2016 to 2022 to 2023
UK principal investigator: Dr Giovanna Astolfo (University College London)
German principal investigators:
- Professor Birgit Glorius (Technische Universität Chemnitz)
- Dr Annegret Haase (Helmholtz-Zentrum für Umweltforschung, UFZ, Leipzig)
Discipline: human geography
Rituals, rubbish and retrieval: new approaches to Roman river finds
UK principal investigator: Professor Hella Eckardt (University of Reading)
German principal investigators:
- Professor Eckhard Deschler-Erb (Universität zu Köln)
- Dr Ferdinand Daniel Heimerl (Universität Trier)
Discipline: archaeology
Scientific poetry and poetics in Britain and Germany, from the Renaissance to the Enlightenment
UK principal investigator: Professor Kevin Killeen (University of York)
German principal investigators:
- Professor Florian Klaeger (Universität Bayreuth)
- Professor Hania Siebenpfeiffer (Philipps-Universität Marburg)
Discipline: languages and literature
Sensory engineering: investigating altered and guided perception and hallucination
UK principal investigator: Dr Derek Brown (University of Glasgow)
German principal investigator: Professor Sascha Benjamin Fink (Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg)
Discipline: philosophy
Shaping Competition in the Digital Age (SCiDA): principles, tools and institutions of digital regulation in the UK, Germany and the EU
UK principal investigator: Professor Oles Andriychuk (University of Newcastle)
German principal investigator: Professor Rupprecht Podszun (Heinrich-Heine-Universität Düsseldorf)
Discipline: law and legal studies
Subjectivities of Owning Land (SoL): land redistribution and the nation state in the Baltics across the 20th century
UK principal investigator: Dr Klaus Richter (University of Birmingham)
German principal investigator: Privatdozentin Heidi Hein-Kircher (Herder-Institut für historische Ostmitteleuropaforschung, Marburg)
Discipline: history
The syntax of nominal copular clauses: theoretical and empirical perspectives
UK principal investigator: Professor Caroline Heycock (The University of Edinburgh)
German principal investigator: Professor Jutta M. Hartmann (Universität Bielefeld)
Discipline: linguistics
Take me and make it happen! How-to books from the Ferguson collection and corresponding holdings at the Herzog August Library Wolfenbüttel
UK principal investigator: Dr Laurence Grove (University of Glasgow)
German principal investigator: Privatdozent Dr Stefan Laube (Herzog August Bibliothek Wolfenbüttel)
Discipline: history
Voices from the periphery: (de-)constructing and contesting public narratives about post-industrial marginalisation
UK principal investigator: Dr Antje Glück (Bournemouth University)
German principal investigator: Dr Anke Fiedler (Universität Greifswald)
Discipline: drama and theatre studies
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