20 years of Interdisciplinarity
The Göttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences (GGG) is 20 years old. I was able to experience the last quarter of this period as a member of the board and, most recently, as spokesperson. Just like the Göttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences in general and its range of courses in particular, our work on the board is primarily interdisciplinary. The GGG offers its members, doctoral students from the Faculty of Law, the Faculty of Social Sciences and the Faculty of Economics, the opportunity to look beyond their own discipline, make interdisciplinary contacts and work together.
It makes the same offer to us members of the Executive Board. Over the past years, we have worked together to shape the work of the Göttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences for doctoral students from our three faculties and have been able to learn a lot from each other. It is precisely the combination of similarities and differences between the disciplines that makes the exchange and cooperation so attractive and profitable.
For example, one common challenge we all faced was the significant decline in the number of participants in doctoral courses at the GGG and our faculties since the pandemic. Fortunately, these have recently started to rise again. The differences, in turn, have led to offers for our respective doctoral candidates in all three member faculties that complement the courses offered by the Göttingen Graduate School of Social Sciences in a disciplinary manner. The constructive exchange, learning from and with each other at the GGG – across disciplinary boundaries – are an excellent reason to celebrate her twentieth anniversary, to look forward to her future career and to continue to shape it together in the future.
Prof. Dr. Angela Schwerdtfeger
Speaker of GGG
Translated with DeepL.com (free version)