UNC welcomes delegation from Universität Bremen

bremenA delegation from Universität Bremen in Germany visited the University of North Carolina at Chapel Hill the week of Sept. 6 to strengthen the growing partnership between the institutions. The delegation included Annette Lang, director of the Bremen International Office, and Christian Peters, managing director of the Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences.

During their visit, the delegation met with UNC faculty and administrators to discuss current partnership activities and explore possibilities for future initiatives. Faculty and students from Bremen currently collaborate with a number of departments in UNC’s College of Arts and Sciences, including marine science, political science and geography, as well as the Center for European Studies and a multi-discipline initiative in the humanities and social sciences about borders.

“Oceanographic research thrives through international collaboration,” said Andreas Teske, UNC marine sciences professor who works closely with collaborators at Bremen. “Most importantly, our graduate students benefit from access to joint research cruises; they can pursue scientific opportunities that would be unthinkable otherwise.”

Faculty in marine sciences from UNC and Bremen regularly publish joint papers, support funding proposals, and collaborate on research projects by sharing ships, equipment and personnel. An active exchange of postdocs and graduate students is taking place, and faculty members from each university often serve on dissertation committees for the other’s students. UNC marine sciences professors Carol Arnosti and Andreas Teske have built many close ties with researchers at Bremen’s Center for Marine Environmental Sciences and the Max-Planck-Institute for Marine Microbiology (MPI). Teske was joined by over 15 collaborators from the MPI and Bremen on two previous research cruises to hydrothermal vent sites in the Guaymas Basin in the Gulf of California and will host collaborators from Bremen on an upcoming cruise. Arnosti and her students frequently participate in expeditions organized by Bremen and other partners in the Atlantic and Arctic Oceans.

A number of UNC faculty members in political science have had long-standing relationships with social scientists at Bremen, collaborating on research and publications, as well as seminars and lectures. A recent major project between UNC and Bremen political scientists is the Oxford Handbook of Transformations of the State (Oxford University Press, 2015), co-edited and featuring articles by faculty members from both universities.

Since 2010, Bremen has been a member of the TransAtlantic Masters (TAM) program, a unique graduate program offered through the Center for European Studies. Students in TAM’s European governance track can spend a semester or year at Bremen as part of their degree for study and research. UNC and Bremen recently finalized a dual-degree option to allow TAM students to obtain a degree from both universities, and Bremen students are now able to come to UNC each spring on exchange with TAM students. During their visit, the delegation met with a UNC TAM student who will study at Bremen next year.

Faculty from UNC have been cooperating with Bremen and Duke University since 2012 on a series of interdisciplinary summer institutes on “Borders, Borderthinking and Borderlands.” These institutes bring together faculty and graduate students from around the world representing a variety of disciplines in the humanities and social sciences, including history, religious studies, Romance studies and German studies. Participants discuss their projects within the framework of borderthinking and learn from each other through presentations, workshop sessions and keynote lectures.