This marks the start of a further initiative to strengthen relations between the School of Language and Cultural Studies at the University of Oldenburg and our strategic partner across the border, the School of Arts at the University of Groningen in the Netherlands.
From 1 April to 30 September 2026, Marije Michel, Professor of Second Language Acquisition at the University of Groningen (https://www.rug.nl/staff/m.c.michel/), will undertake a research stay at the University of Oldenburg. She has been awarded a Hannah Arendt Fellowship by the State of Lower Saxony (https:// zukunft.niedersachsen.de/aktuelles/hannah-arendt-fellowships-starten-2026) to work closely with Juliana Goschler, Professor of German as a Second Language (https://uol.de/juliana-goschler), on a project entitled ‘Bridges and Boundaries of Democracy: A dynamic investigation of attitudes and relationships between German and Dutch neighbours in the north’.
More about the project:
In the spring of 2025, the German Federal Government introduced systematic border controls. After 40 years of free movement within the Schengen Area, systematic identity checks were reintroduced at the border between the Netherlands (NL) and Germany (DE), both founding members of the 1985 agreement. Whilst the Dutch government did not follow suit, in June 2025, angry Dutch citizens carried out unauthorised checks at the Dutch–Lower Saxony border to prevent unwanted migration. This act of vigilante justice is a further sign that fundamental democratic values in Europe are under pressure in 2025 (see Charter of Fundamental Rights of the European Union, 2012). However, in order to overcome future challenges, “we need a society that is resilient and firmly united”.
Through the Hannah Arendt Fellowship, we aim to gain a better understanding of how the reintroduction of physical borders might affect democratic values in Europe in general and, more specifically, how the existence of a German-Dutch border influences mutual interests and people’s attitudes towards one another.