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Blick auf eine weiße moderne Treppe aus Marmor von unten. Die Treppe findet sich in einem minimalistischen Raum, rechts und links sind weiße Wände. Die Treppe führt nach oben ins helle Licht.

Junior Researcher

Funding Source: Federal Ministry of Education and Research: Junior Research Group

Principal Investigator: Tobias Escher (Department of Social Sciences)

Duration: 05/2019 – 04/2024

The research group CIMT investigates the chances and challenges of involving citizens in political decisions in the context of sustainable mobility transitions. Our focus are local planning processes (both formal and informal) that aim to expand sustainable mobility. We investigate under what circumstances the involvement of citizens enables municipalities to increase the quality of political decisions on the one hand (in particular in relation to sustainability) and the public acceptance of the necessary measures on the other. What is more, the group aims to develop (semi-)automated approaches to analyse citizen contributions in order to support the evaluation of participatory processes.

Further information

Funding Source: Université franco-allemande– Collège Doctoral

Project Lead: Andrea von Hülsen-Esch

Duration: 2022 - 2025

Cooperating partners: University of Tübingen, University of Aix-Marseille (F)

The Franco-German Doctoral Programme "Cultural Conflicts / Cultures of Conflict" is based on academic cooperation between the universities of Aix-Marseille, Tübingen and Düsseldorf. It promotes interdisciplinary research, interdisciplinary approaches as well as integrated doctoral studies in the fields of cultural, media and literary studies, history, philosophy, art history and political science, which - starting from a Franco-German perspective - deal with the relations of culture and conflict in a broad sense. The DFGK facilitates double degrees (doctoral theses in the form of the Cotutelle) and longer research stays at the respective partner universities of the doctoral students as well as their sustainable integration into excellent research networks in France, Germany and other countries.

Further information (German only)

Scholarship programme of the Federal Foreign Office for coming to terms with German colonial rule in African, Asian and Pacific countries

Funding Source: DAAD, Federal Foreign Office

Project Lead HHU: Stefanie Michels (Department of Historical Studies)

Duration: 2021 - 2026

Cooperating partner: University Dschang/ Cameroon

Within the framework of the scholarship programme "German Colonial Rule", the Federal Foreign Office (AA)/DaAD is supporting young academics (doctoral candidates) from former German colonial regions to examine  German colonial rule in African, Asian and Pacific countries until 2026. Their research focuses on political activities of the responsible government agencies in the former German Reich and the political, economic and cultural impacts on the countries concerned.

Further information: 

Funding Source: Ministry of Culture and Science North Rhine-Westphalia

Principal Investigator: Düsseldorf Institute for Internet and Democracy

Duration: 2014 - 2022

Cooperating partner: University of Applied Sciences for Public Administration of North Rhine-Westphalia

The PhD programme „Online Participation“ is funded by the North Rhine-Westphalian funding scheme “Fortschrittskollegs” and brings together scientists from the field of Computer Science, Business Studies, Law, Sociology, Communication Studies and Political Science as well as a large number of practitioners to investigate the opportunities the internet offers to involve citizens in the making of political and administrative decisions that affect them. The guiding question of the PhD programme is: “How and under what conditions can the potential of online participation in the political participation process at the local level be systematically developed, practically applied and scientifically evaluated?” To address this guiding question, more than a dozen PhD students together with the research staff of the programme work on a trans- and multidisciplinary basis.

Further Information