13,4 million euros for research into the "Structural Change of Property"

"The continued funding enables us to continue our interdisciplinary basic research and at the same time do justice to the highly topical and dynamic nature of property relations. After all, technological change and advancing digitalisation, climate change and its consequences, global geopolitical changes and growing social inequality are causing and influencing fundamental changes to property," says sociologist Professor Silke van Dyk, spokesperson for the research network. Van Dyk succeeds Professor Hartmut Rosa, Director of the Max-Weber-Kolleg at the University of Erfurt, who previously acted as speaker. Together with Professor Tilman Reitz, they form the spokesperson team of the Collaborative Research Centre. The new funding phase begins at the beginning of January next year and runs until the end of 2028.

The Collaborative Research Centre "Structural Change of Property" was launched in spring 2021 and comprises a total of 23 subprojects from the social sciences and humanities as well as law and economics. "The subprojects cover a broad spectrum of questions relating to property. Research is also being conducted far beyond Germany and Europe, for example in India and China," emphasises Christine Schickert, Scientific Director of the Collaborative Research Centre. The spectrum ranges from global issues such as the ownership of natural areas and mineral resources to everyday questions such as how property is dealt with in relationships. The continued funding from the DFG will now enable the subprojects to investigate new questions and further sharpen the profile of the network. Current issues, such as the ownership of energy sources in the light of the war in Ukraine and the energy transition, are also coming into focus.

Christine Schickert says that the DFG's assessment of the Collaborative Research Centre attested to the excellence of its work. This work naturally radiates outwards: For example, it has launched its own book series "Structural Change in Property" with Campus Verlag, in which several volumes have already been published. It began with a study by Jan Dirk Harke on Roman inheritance law and the volume "Nach dem Privateigentum? Güter, Infrastrukturen und Weltverhältnisse im Kapitalismus des 21. Jahrhunderts", written jointly by Silke van Dyk, Tilman Reitz and Hartmut Rosa. Research findings are also made publicly available in a blog and a podcast series. A dedicated cinema series "Eigentum im Blick" in cooperation with a cinema in Jena also takes the topic beyond the universities and into the city. In cooperation with the Thuringian University and State Library in Jena, the "New Library of Property" was also launched, which includes introductions to important basic texts and classics on property, from antiquity to the present day, as well as relevant audio and visual sources.

(text: Stephan Laudien, FSU Jena)