Academic Track in Göttingen
The 3rd-semester Academic Track at the University of Göttingen offers students the opportunity to develop their individual profiles further. They will not only get to work on current challenges for Europe in innovative ways, but in doing so also have to reflect upon position as researcher. The track is meant for those students with a genuine interest in research (and see themselves going for a PhD) as well as those who like to tackle concrete and real-world-problems. It is applying a laboratory-approach in its core courses.
The central element of our Research Track is our “ResearchLAB”. This seminar is to open a space for students to critically assess approaches to current challenges from an interdisciplinary perspective. Students are asked to identify challenges they want to deal with in the seminar (i.e., the war on Ukraine, climate change or migration).
The "ResearchLAB: Imagining Europe Differently" can be linked by the students with the class “ResearchMETHODS: Analyzing Europe”. This seminar offers additional tools for the methodological toolbox of the students, here now in a more in-depths way than (usually) possible in the methodology seminar. In this seminar, we will get hands-on experience on how these datasets are generated and the databases structured, learn about their advantages and limits, and how they can be used to answer substantive questions about multilevel politics.
Building on the research seminars, in the “ResearchFORUM: Discussing Europe” students will develop, carry out, and evaluate a conference as collaborative research and academic exchange project. The symposium is to include contributions from external experts and/or students from other programmes to foster interdisciplinary dialogue on content, methods, and conceptual approaches. Students determine the format (in-person, online, or hybrid) and duration of the event.
Adding to these classes in which the students develop research projects and improve their methodological skills, they have the opportunity to choose two electives in order to broaden their overview of topics in current research on Euroculture and shape their own profile by choosing a ResearchFOCUS. Our offering as part of FOCUS is clustered into “Society and Culture”, “History and Economy”, “Politics and Law”. As part of this module, the participating disciplines of the Euroculture programme in Göttingen offer classes the students can choose from depending on the field and topic they want to further focus on. The variety of courses ensures the students’ opportunity to deepen their knowledge in their field(s) of interest. The specializations also provide the students with the opportunity to generate ideas for an MA thesis or a further academic career and can be an advantage when seeking a job.
Academically, the research track gave me the opportunity to study quantitative methods, which I had not encountered at any of my previous universities. Additionally, thanks to recommendations from the coordinators, I was able to gain admission into another Master’s program following my Euroculture degree.
Göttingen itself is a wonderful city, rich in academic life and home to a diverse international student community. I always look forward to the chance to return.”
Your own Research Project
- Offers additional tools for the methodological toolbox of the students
- Teaching quantitative methods not only for those who are into that field, but are good also for students who want to pursue a qualitative project, if only to better situate their case in the broader research field of European Studies.
- Students will get hands-on experience on how these datasets are generated and the databases structured, learn about their advantages and limits, and how they can be used to answer substantive questions about multilevel politics.
- Applications include quantitative research designs that use existing datasets, but also the use of quantitative data to identify interesting cases for study, or case studies that trace European policies from the proposal to the final legislative act.
- Challenge-based teaching
- Students identify a challenges they want to deal with in the seminar (i.e., the war on Ukraine, climate change or migration).
- Students pool their knowledge from their respective backgrounds to reflect upon, frame and discuss the issues at hand.
- They can then conceptualize alternative approaches and solutions.
- Students develop their own conference
- Students find peers and experts and invite them to discuss their research
“Studying in Göttingen was for me like being on a holiday where you work hard and are surrounded by great people. Working hard and being on holiday seems to contradict each other and yet, Göttingen makes it work. The green surroundings, the small and beautiful city, the relaxed atmosphere at the campus. It all makes it feel like a holiday. This encouraged by the informal and very pleasant interaction with the Euroculture team.”
Gosse VuijkSharpening your Profile and Building Expertise
Examples from the last years:
- “Decision-making in the European Union” (Supervisor: Prof. Dr. Simon Fink):
In this simulation, current research on Europe will be applied to social and political problems, and students will learn to critically evaluate real-world problems with a social scientific perspective.
- Living with diversity: Comparative Perspectives on the political rights of indigenous people and national minorities
- Politics of Globalization
- Curse or gift? Natural resources in intrastate conflicts
- Pandemic and Politics
- Theorizing State Power
Examples from the last years:
- Media and the Public Sphere
- Cities and Migration, 1850s-2000s
- Humans, Robots, Androids
- Climate Fiction: Writing, History, and Ethics in a Planetary Age
- Culture, Communication and Museums
- Intercultural Hermeneutics
- Postcolonial Rewritings of Shakespeare
Examples from the last years:
- Critical Histories and the Problem of Space
- Afghanistan in the 20th and 21st century: Global and regional aspects
- Immigrant Entrepreneurship
- Global History of Marketing and Mass Consumption
(This page outlines the Academic Track that is to be implemented to for the winter term 2026/27)