The Max Weber Centre for Advanced Cultural and Social Studies (Max-Weber-Kolleg Erfurt) combines the functions of an Institute for Advanced Study and a Graduate School. This means that fellows appointed at the Centre not only pursue research projects that contribute to the core themes of the Centre but also offer guidance to doctoral candidates and to post-doctoral researchers working in similar fields of research. Intensive supervision relationships can therefore develop. Interaction between fellows, doctoral candidates and post-doctoral researchers follows the basic academic principle of research driven by instruction and instruction driven by research.