The Blankensee-Colloquia are international workshops, each on an innovative issue from the humanities or social sciences. Under the thematic umbrella “Cultural and Social Change”, the focus is on researching the processes of societal and cultural change of our time. Welcome are combinations of various disciplinary and methodological approaches and a comparative perspective from which such processes of change can be viewed, also in the light of faraway and culturally unfamiliar experiences.

The Blankensee-Colloquia aim to foster younger researchers in the Berlin region and at the same time to work on especially interesting issues. Younger researchers at the beginning of their careers have the opportunity to present themselves and their work in the context of an international workshop or seminar and in a circle of relevantly specialized domestic and foreign colleagues. Research on new issues is preferred. Accordingly, the thematic framework of the program “Cultural and Social Change” is consciously kept broad. It should be understood as an invitation to address issues that are not at the center of the respective discipline or the usual work. The Blankensee-Colloquia seek to offer space for discussing novel, experimental research interests and to promote their acceptance.

To this end, tenders for the Blankensee-Colloquia are generally invited annually as an idea competition titled “Cultural and Social Change”. The competition targets researchers in the region who have completed their doctorate or their habilitation or who have recently been appointed to academic positions. Interested parties are invited to apply with a sketch of their ideas. Invited to the Colloquia are representatives of Berlin and Brandenburg research institutions and observers from organizations that foster research.

Presidents and rectors from the following institutions share responsibility for the program:

• Freie Universität Berlin
• Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
• Technische Universität Berlin
• Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Sciences and Humanities, Berlin (BBAW)
• Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin für Sozialforschung (WZB)
• Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin

Currently, two Blankensee-Colloquia are being prepared:

In the selection round of December 2019 the proposal Who captures the gains? New theoretical concepts on the impact of digital transformation on the global economy, submitted by Florian Butollo (WZB Berlin Social Science Center and the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society) Gale Raj-Reichert (WZB Berlin Social Science Center) was selected.

In December of 2020, the proposal Sexuelle Selbstbestimmung jenseits des Körperlichen. Eine interdisziplinäre Vermessung des strafrechtlichen Schutzes im 21. Jahrhundert submitted by Boris Burgharrdt (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Anja Schmidt (Martin-Luther-Universität Halle-Wittenberg) and Leonie Steinl (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin) was chosen. This Colloquium is planned to take place in march 2022.

Each year in the fall the call for applications is being published.

1. "Emergent Forms of Life. Towards a Social and Cultural Anthropology of Life Sciences", 11. - 13. Dezember 2003, organised by Dr. Stefan Beck und Dr. Michi Knecht  
    
2. "Der Begriff des Politischen in Europa", 11. - 13. Mai 2004, organised by von Professor Dr. Ulrich Haltern, LL.M.
    
3. "The Future of Intervention: Intervention,  Legitimacy and the Reconstruction of Statehood", 16. - 18. Juli 2004, organised by Dr. habil. Christoph Zuercher und Dr. Kristof Gosztonyi
    
4. "Language Evolution - Cognitive and Cultural Factors", 14. - 17. Juli 2005, organised by Dr. habil. Regine Eckardt, Dr. habil. Gerhard Jäger und Dr. Tonjes Veenstra
    
5. "Public and Private Resource Governance: Mutations and Transformations of a Grand Dichotomy", 13. - 15 Januar 2006, organised by Dr. Thomas Sikor, Professor Dr. Eva Barlösius, Dr. Waltina Scheumann und Dr. habil. Susanne Still-Kleemann
    
6. "Simulation als Kulturtechnik. Forschung zum Wandel des mathematischen Blicks der Wissenschaft auf die Welt und seine kulturellen und sozialen Folgen für die Gesellschaft", 20. - 22. September 2007, organised by Dr. Gabriele Gramelsberger
    
7. "Organisierte Kriminalität als Konstrukt, gesellschaftliche Herausforderung und Forschungsgegenstand", 27. Februar - 3. März 2008, organised by Dr. Klaus von Lampe
    
8. "Bridging the Gap Between Economics and Area Studies", 8. - 10. Juli 2009, organised by Frau Professor Barbara Fritz (FU Berlin), Professor Carsten Herrmann Pillath (Universität Witten/Herdecke) und
   Dr. Stephan Panther (Universität Flensburg)
    
9. "Hearing Modern History, Auditory Cultures in the 19th and 20th Century", organised by Dr. Daniel Morat, FU Berlin, 17. - 19. June 2010
    
10. "Neighborhood Technologies. Media  and Mathematics of Dynamic Networks", 30.08. - 01.09.12, organisiert von Dr. Sebastian Vehlken, Lüneburg, und Dr. Tobias Harks, Maastricht
     
11. "Verfassung und Verteilung", 31. Mai bis 2. Juni 2013 organisiert von Professor Anna Bettina Kaiser (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Professor Sigrid Boysen (Freie Universität Berlin), and Dr. Florian Meinel (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
     
12. "Unfolding the 'Muslim Question'. Towards a genealogy of religious freedom and the minority question in Western European nation states", 19. bis 21. Juni 2014, Berlin, organisiert von Shirin Amir Moazami (Freie Universität Berlin) und Nadia Fadil (Leuven).
     
13. "Nudge versus Educate: Comparing two Approaches to Policy in Terms of their Modeling Strategies", 3. - 6. Juni 2014 in Blankensee, organisiert von Konstantinos Katsikopoulos (MPI für Bildungsforschung), Niklas Keller (Charité Berlin) und Till Grüne Yanoff (Stockholm).
     
14. "From Phantom Maps to Real Boundaries. Comparison of the post-soviet and the post-yugoslav context", 10. -11. März 2016, organisiert von Dr. Sabine von Löwis (Centre Marc Bloch) und Dr. Nenad Stefanov (Humboldt-Universität)
     
15. "Antiakademismus", March 16 to March 18, 2017, organised by Dr. Hannah Engelmeier (Goethe-Universität Frankfurt am Main) and Dr. Philipp Felsch (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin).
     
16. - Wild Publics: Language in public space under the conditions of late modernity, 22 to 25 March 2018, organised by Dr. Theresa Heyd and Dr. Britta Schneider, both working at the Institut für Englische Philologie, Freie Universität Berlin
     
17.   RÜCKZUG — Produktivität des Solitären in Kunst, Religion und Geschlechtergeschichte, 4 to 6 October 2018, organised by Jun.-Prof. Dr. Xenia von Tippelskirch (Institut für Geschichtswissenschaften, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Jun.- Prof. Dr. Beatrice Trînca (Institut für Religionswissenschaft, Freie Universität Berlin), and Dr. Jenny Haase (Institut für Romanistik, Humboldt-Uniersität zu Berlin).
     
18. Capturing and Analyzing Social Change: Opportunities of Analyzing Visual Data in the 21st Century, June  7. -8. June 2019, organised by Anne Nassauer (Freie Universität Berlin) and Nicolas Legewie (Deutsches Institut für Wirtschaftsforschung). Please find here a short report and an extended report.
     
19. - Jüdischer Film – ein neues Forschungsgebiet im deutschsprachigen Raum?  January  15 - 17 2020, organised by Lea Wohl von Haselberg, (Filmuniversität Babelsberg KONRAD WOLF)