The staff members at the Institute for Democracy Research are dedicated to the analysis of political culture in Lower Saxony, in Germany and in international comparison. Since April 2021, the Institute for Democracy Research, Georg-August-Universität Göttingen is led by the director Prof. Dr. Simon T. Franzmann. Historically, the institute, founded in 2010 by Franz Walter, emerged from the AG Parteienforschung (together with Peter Lösche). Accordingly, we combine analyses of political culture with research on the transformation of parties and party systems. Another focus is the analysis of political movements. The Göttingen Diversity Research Institute researches processes of diversification and their consequences. The Institute’s primary aim is to develop research on diversity and processes of diversification, both theoretically and empirically. We focus in particular on organisational issues. Other areas of interest include the micro level, the macro level and the symbolic order.
The Institute's main objective is to provide contemporary and future-orientated training for various professional fields of activity not only to aspiring teachers, but also to young academic scholars for research and development projects founded on basic research in the educational sciences. We conduct research in South East Asia, Oceania, Africa, America and Göttingen in urban and rural contexts. We have been specialising in the major regions of Oceania in the Asia-Pacific region and Africa since the Institute was founded. Today, four professorships and a systematically structured library with about 40,000 volumes are part of our Institute. Our internationally renowned Ethnographic Collection continues to be one of the special features of anthropology in Göttingen. The Institute for Methods and Methodological Foundations of Social Sciences (IMS) was founded in the fall of 2022 as an interdisciplinary scientific institution of the Faculty of Social Sciences. The IMS fulfills university tasks in research, teaching, studies and further education in the field of social science research methods as well as interdisciplinary theory training. Currently, eight professors and about 30 research assistants teach and conduct research at the Institute of Political Science in all areas of the discipline. Currently, about 1,100 students are enrolled in Bachelor's programs and about 170 in Master's programs with a constitutive political science component. In addition, 18 doctoral students are working on their dissertations within the framework of the structured doctoral program. Political Science in Göttingen thus covers the entire spectrum of the subject . The Institute of Sociology at Göttingen University focuses on the international comparative analysis of modern societies, their economic, political and cultural dynamics of change as well as their integration into global or transnational structures. The Göttingen Institute of Sociology is one of the few facilities in Germany whose research does not only focus on European, but also on non-European societies. The Institute for Sports Science consists of the three working areas Sports Education and Didactics, Sports and Health Sociology and Exercise Science and Kinesiology. IThe centre adopts an interdisciplinary approach to five major themes: Metamorphoses of the Political, Religion, Inequality and Diversity, Labour and Capital in Modern India, and Media and Public Spheres. SOFI has been an affiliated institute of the Georg-August-Universität Göttingen since 1983, and an associated campus partner since 2020. SOFI research follows the principle of application-oriented basic research dedicated to central issues of the day: the transformation of the world of work and digitalization, social cohesion and the production of public goods, social inequality and the common good. Wissenschaftliche Einrichtungen der Fakultät
Institute for Democracy Research
Institute for Diversity Research
Institute for Educational Science
Institute of Social and Cultural Anthropology
Institute for Methods and Methodological Foundations of Social Sciences
Institute of Political Science
Institute of Sociology
Institute for Sports Science
Centre for Modern Indian Studies (CeMIS)
Soziologisches Forschungsinstitut (SOFI)