University of Sydney joins SCRIPTS Centre of Excellence

The University of Sydney is one of a number of institutions that successfully secured funding of about €50 million ($80 million) from the German Research Foundation - Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG).

Together, the institutions form the SCRIPTS Cluster of Excellence, which will examine global challenges facing contemporary liberal societies, including climate change, migration, nuclear proliferation and terrorism.

SCRIPTS is based at The Free University of Berlin and includes top researchers from prominent research institutions in Berlin, including the WZB. International partners include the University of Sydney, National University of Singapore, Peking University, Fudan University, Waseda University, The Chinese University of Hong Kong, Jawaharlal Nehru University and the University of Melbourne.

The University of Sydney’s participation in SCRIPTS is led by Professor John Keane from the School of Social and Political Sciences in the Faculty of Arts and Social Sciences.

Professor Keane joined a strategic planning workshop in November 2019 where participants discussed SCRIPTS’s research goals and assessed possibilities for the international partners to contribute and collaborate over the course of the six-year funding period.

“With the liberal model for organising politics, markets and society facing a profound crisis, the work of SCRIPTS – which will include broad-range historical, philosophical and global perspectives – will be vital in figuring out the best ways of tackling some of the troubling challenges our world is facing in the 21st century,” Professor Keane said.

Call for applications: 2020 Postdoctoral Fellowships

The Cluster of Excellence “Contestations of the Liberal Script” (SCRIPTS) is offering up to four postdoctoral fellowships within its International Research College (IRC). 

• Duration: 10 month fellowships starting October 2020
• Deadline for Applications: 3 April 2020
• Read more about the Cluster and the application procedure here, to submit an inquiry contact irc@scripts-berlin.eu

Click here to apply for a fellowship

2020 PhD programme

Please note the 2020 PhD programme closed on 31 January 2020.

High-achieving graduate students from the University of Sydney are invited to apply for the SCRIPTS PhD Programme, based at the Berlin Graduate School for Global and Transregional Studies.

The three-year English language doctoral programme provides state-of-the-art theory classes, solid training in research methods and research design, soft skills courses and individual supervision.

The program focuses on contemporary contestations of the liberal script from historical, global and comparative perspectives, with a particular interest in global and transregional processes. Apart from social science and historical approaches, students of area studies, gender studies, philosophy and education studies are also encouraged to submit their proposals.