Hub 2 - Society, Culture and Heritage – CIVIS - Europe's Civic University Alliance

Introduction

Hub 2 – Society, Culture, and Heritage (SCH) – aims to act as an incubator for academic collaborations in research-oriented teaching activities. Building on the development of joint educational offers, it has grown long-standing partnerships and sustainable inter-institutional collaborations, especially at MA and PhD level. These collaborations also aim to foster multidisciplinary research projects and to strengthen partnerships with external stakeholders such as public knowledge institutions like museums.

Hub 2 addresses a broad interdisciplinary field of research and teaching in the areas of “Society, Culture, and Heritage”. As societies face constant change and multiple crises, the Hub strives to promote critical reflection on the historical and theoretical basis of different forms of living together. Its manifold educational and research projects explore experiences, impacts and challenges of migration, cultural diversity and identity, community building, multilingualism, participation, and diverse forms of heritage – as well as responsibility in and to the world. This Hub supports academics willing to tackle challenges together with colleagues of the CIVIS partner universities in transnational and multidisciplinary teams.

Activities & Leadership

On principle, Hub 2 aims to foster long-term collaborations as MA and PhD programmes. However, strongly believing in the bottom-up growth of sustainable partnerships, the Hub highly values the numerous smaller initiatives, such as short-term mobility projects in research and education.

MA in Palaeolithic Archaeology (ART-W),
Contact: Natasha Singh, University of Tübingen.
MA in South European Studies (EUROSUD),
Contact: Prof. Anne-Marie Reynaers, Universidad Autónoma de Madrid.
CIVIS Museum University Forum (MUF), offering a transdisciplinary doctoral programme thatstrives to set the foundation for long-term and fruitful exchanges between preservation and innovation, exhibition and research – engaging international and interdisciplinary academics, archives, on-site professionals and the public.
Contact: Prof. Thomas Thiemeyer, University of Tübingen.
A growing Interdisciplinary Doctoral Programme in Plural Ontologies and Intercultural Philosophy,
Contact: Dr. Madalina Guzun Masoud, University of Tübingen.

For future CIVIS initiatives, the Hub especially welcomes inter-Hub collaborations, joint activities with colleagues at our African partner universities, and innovative pedagogy formats. A key criterion for all CIVIS activities is the collaboration of academics from at least three CIVIS partner universities. Further funding criteria will be communicated along with respective calls.

Leadership

The Hub was launched in 2020 and is represented and co-directed by the University of Tübingen (UT) and the National & Kapodistrian University of Athens (NKUA). The Hub is currently co-chaired by Prof. Dr. Dorothee Kimmich (UT) and Prof. Dr. Kirki Kefalea (NKUA)

All CIVIS partner universities have nominated representatives to be members of the Hub 2 Council, which makes important decisions collectively and reports directly to the CIVIS Steering Committee, and vice versa.

Get involved and learn more

The Hub works to facilitate contacts and collaborations. If you would like to plan a new teaching or research activity with colleagues from the CIVIS partner universities, we invite you to contact your closest colleagues on the Hub Council, your university’s representative member. If you need support for finding partners or guidance on the CIVIS approach, please contact the Chairs or Coordinators of the Hub 2 Council.