(See English version below)

The project analyses the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Wiko). The Wiko is one of the world's most renowned Institutes for Advanced Study (IAS) and is intended to offer selected top scientists the opportunity to give their own thinking a new direction beyond the disciplinary segmentation of everyday university life. The fellows should be free from all commercialisation interests and pressure to succeed in their research and even be allowed to fail. From the outset, the Centre was intended to undermine disciplinary boundaries, the difference between science and art as well as national research traditions by inviting academics from all subjects, artists and fellows from the former Eastern Bloc, Africa, Asia and South America.

The Wiko appears as a hub of the academic world: the residency is deliberately designed to break with university routines and subsequently change them. A longitudinal analysis reveals a transformation of the habitus and self-image of academics since the 1980s. The Wiko can also be interpreted as a symptom of a crisis in the academic system, which has come under increasing criticism due to bureaucratisation, specialisation, overcrowding and the intensified global academic competition that was already apparent when the Wiko was founded.

This IAS therefore offers an ideal case study in the history of science in order to examine in detail the diverse and complex structural changes in science in post-war Germany, focussing on an eccentrically positioned institution. The project will reconstruct the founding history of the Wiko since 1978 in the specific scientific situation of the late 1970s and 1980s (mass university, criticism of elite thinking, beginning of the discourse on excellence) and determine the position of the college in the West German and international scientific landscape more precisely.

Supervisor: Dr phil. habil. David Kuchenbuch.

The project has been funded by the DFG since 2024.

First publication:

• Etzemüller, Thomas: "My God, that was the happiest year of my life". The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin as milieu and revelation. On the ethnography of an anti-university institution, in: Meyer, Daniel/Reuter, Julia/Berli, Oliver (eds.): Ethnografie der Hochschule. On research into university practice, Bielefeld 2022, pp. 251-273

The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, 1978-2020. A Study in History and Sociology of Science

The research project examines the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin (Wiko). Wiko is one of the world's most renowned Institutes for Advanced Study (IAS), offering select academics the opportunity to give new direction to their thinking, unburdened by the constraints and routines of everyday university life. Free from commercial or bureaucratic pressures, the fellows are invited to conduct research according to their own interests, even fail - productively - in their endeavours. From its beginnings, the Kolleg was in fact meant to undermine disciplinary boundaries and those separating science and art, as well as national research traditions, by inviting academics from all disciplines, artists, and public figures, from the (former) Eastern Bloc, Africa, Asia, and South America.

The Wiko, thus, holds a special place in the academic world. The fellowships are deliberately designed as a break away from university routines, intended to change fellows' perceptions of their own work as a result. Consequently, Wiko also makes for an ideal object to study transformations in the habitus and self-image of academics since the 1980s from a historiographical viewpoint. Similarly, Wiko can be interpreted as the outcome of a permanent crisis discourse in the university system, which is seen as suffering from bureaucratization, specialization, teaching overload, and intense global scientific competition, all of which were already apparent when the Wiko was founded.

As an institution which is at the same time eccentrically positioned and functionally integrated in the academic world, the Wissenschaftskolleg thus offers an ideal case study by which to examine in detail the diverse and complex structural changes in academia in the post-war period. The project will reconstruct the founding history of Wiko since 1978 in the specific context of the late 1970s and 80s (mass university, criticism of elitism, beginnings of the "excellence"-discourse) and determine the position the IAS has since held in the (West) German and international academic landscape.

The project has been funded by the DFG since 2024.

Researcher: Dr. phil. habil. David Kuchenbuch

First publication:

• Etzemüller, Thomas: "My God, that was the happiest year of my life". The Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin as milieu and revelation. On the ethnography of an anti-university institution. In: Meyer, Daniel/Reuter, Julia/Berli, Oliver (Eds.): Ethnography of the University. On the exploration of university practice, Bielefeld 2022, 251-273