This is the beginning of another initiative to strengthen the relationship between the School of Linguistics and Cultural Studies at the University of Oldenburg and our strategic partner across the border, the Fakulteit Letteren 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 be completing a research stay at the University of Oldenburg. She has been awarded a Hannah Arendt Fellowship from the state of Lower Saxony (https:// zukunft.niedersachsen.de/aktuelles/hannah-arendt-fellowships-starten-2026) to work in close collaboration with Juliana Goschler, Professor of German as a Second Language(https://uol.de/juliana-goschler), on a project entitled "Bridges and Borders of Democracy: A Dynamic Study of Attitudes and Relationships of German-Dutch Neighbours in the North".

More about the project:

In spring 2025, the German 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. While the Dutch government did not follow suit, disgruntled Dutch citizens carried out unauthorised checks at the Dutch-Lower Saxony border in June 2025 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".

With the Hannah Arendt Fellowship, we aim to gain a better understanding of how the reintroduction of physical borders could affect democratic values in Europe in general and, more specifically, how the presence of a German-Dutch border affects people's mutual interests and attitudes towards each other.