Diversity at the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin e.V.

Since its founding as an Institute for Advanced Study, the Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin has adhered to the conviction that highest academic achievements are fostered by a diverse, multiculturally open, and discrimination-free environment. First, because research profits from cooperation and dialogical debates transcending local and national boundaries, i.e., from discussions with specialized colleagues from whom “the researchers can learn and whom they can say something to – all over the world” (H. Maier-Leibnitz). Second, because innovations in research often arise at the margins of established disciplines in interdisciplinary and venturesome surroundings that have a critical, disconcerting effect and break open accustomed perspectives. And finally, because open exchange among researchers from differing cultural contexts and life situations can provide unexpected intellectual impulses and can contribute to new emphases in research problems and desiderata. For the Wissenschaftskolleg, dealing with one’s own background and the background of the “other”, the Fellows’ various cultural experiences and intellectual traditions, and their dealing with unaccustomed disciplines, themes, and questions are thus an essential precondition for sharpening and modifying their own positions – and thereby not least for surprising and innovative findings.

To do justice to the idea of diversity in this sense, the Wissenschaftskolleg, in close consultation with its Academic Advisory Board, has developed a number of measures. The leadership continuously observes the effects of these measures on the scientific discourse and on life and work at the Kolleg and adjusts them in agreement with the administrative bodies.

In its quest for diversity, the Wissenschaftskolleg also strives to increase the number of African and Latin American Fellows in its cohorts. To this end, two calls were launched in the recent past in which experts of the respective regions were asked to name potential candidates. Besides, the Rector has asked the Kenyan legal scholar Nkatha Kabira (Iso Lomso Fellow 2021-2022) to act as her Special Advisor on Subsaharan Africa. Based in her home country, she will assist the Kolleg in attracting promising candidates from the region and in increasing its visibility.