The Federal Research Ministry is driving forward the internationalization of the humanities, cultural and social sciences through its international research centres, the Maria Sibylla Merian Centres for Advanced Studies.

To this end, research centres are being supported in regions and partner countries in Asia, Latin America and Africa that are important in terms of science and research policy. At these centres, groups of scientists from Germany, the host countries and other countries in the regions work together to research one self-chosen key issue from various different perspectives, regularly inviting German and international fellows to visit their centre.

The Merian Centres are located within scientific institutions in the host country and are set up and operated by German research institutions in partnership with the respective host institution. Research centres of this kind have already been set up in India, Mexico, Brazil and Ghana. Another research centre is currently being planned in North Africa, Jordan or Lebanon. The Merian Centres lay the foundations for long-term cooperation with the respective partner regions in the humanities and social sciences. They offer intercultural insights, helping us to better understand societal developments and to develop potential solutions for current social problems. In this context, the humanities and social sciences are more important than ever before as well as partnerships that enable international and interdisciplinary research.

In Mexico, at the centre hosted by the University of Guadalajara, researchers take an interdisciplinary approach to addressing questions of how social crises are perceived and reflected by stakeholders from the spheres of politics, industry and culture. What answers arise to dealing with different societal challenges and problems? What might new approaches to problem solving look like – including at an international level – and how can these be put into practice? Answers to these questions will also be included in a database of conflict resolution strategies. This can be used as a basis for developing potential solutions to social crises in Germany and Europe. The research centre is a joint project run by the Universities of Bielefeld, Kassel, Hanover and Jena and is not only aimed at research groups at its main site in Guadalajara, but also at sites in Buenos Aires (National University of San Martín), Quito (Latin American Faculty of Social Sciences) and San José (University of Costa Rica).

The M.S. Merian-R. Tagore Internal Centre od Advanced Studies ‘Metamorphoses of the Political: Comparative Perspectives on the Long Twentieth Century’ (ICAS:MP) in Delhi was the first Merian Centre funded by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in 2015. Researchers from the Universities of Erfurt, Göttingen, Würzburg and the German Historical Institute London worked together with colleagues from India in a preparatory phase to set up ICAS:MP. Since Mid-2018, the centre is in its main funding phase with over 80 affiliated researchers in seven thematic modules who conduct collective and individual research within ICAS:MP’s research framework. Every year, the centre invites 10-15 outstanding Fellows who contribute to the findings of the permanently associated researchers.

The "Merian Centre for Advanced Studies in the Maghreb" (MECAM), founded in 2020, is a platform for regional and international scientific exchange in Tunisia based on the central theme "Imagining Futures - Dealing with Disparity". The centre is located at the renowned Université de Tunis in the Tunisian capital. Its research work focuses on the effects of multidimensional disparity on models, visions and ideas about future.

Besides the University of Marburg, the partners of the MECAM consortium in Germany include the University of Leipzig, the GIGA - German Institute of Global and Area Studies in Hamburg and the Forum Transregional Studies in Berlin. In addition to the Université de Tunis, the regional partners are the University of Sfax and the Institut Tunisien des Études Stratégiques (ITES) in Tunisia, as well as other partners from Morocco and Lebanon.

Mecila, the Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America, is one of five international centres for advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in cooperation with local institutions and funding agencies.

Mecila is an academic consortium composed of three German institutions: Freie Universität Berlin (coordination), Universität zu Köln, and Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz); and four Latin American institutions: Universidade de São Paulo, Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento, El Colegio de México, and Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CONICET / Universidad Nacional de La Plata). The Centre aims at developing cutting-edge research through horizontal interdisciplinary cooperation among scholars from Germany, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions of the world, drawing on long-term collaborative ties between the consortium institutions.

Mecila’s headquarters are in São Paulo, Brazil. Its activities take place at all seven member institutions, as well as at other cooperating institutions with joint projects.

Since early 2018, the research centre at the University of Ghana – one of the best universities in Africa – has been dedicated to the study of democratic governance, conflict management and sustainable environmental transformation.

Its focus is on pressing research questions such as what are the specific characteristics of African societies in which democratic structures exist? Why are countries in Sub-Saharan Africa in particular confronted with protracted violent conflicts? What effects do these have on the movements of refugees and migrants?

The centre is partnered with the German Universities of Freiburg, Frankfurt am Main and Constance as well as the GIGA German Institute of Global and Area Studies and the German Historical Institute Paris, part of the Max Weber Foundation.