Jacobs University, Humanities and Social Sciences

PhD in Integrated Social Sciences

The PhD-Program in Integrated Social Sciences is a Research-Only-PhD Program. While favouring an interdisciplinary orientation, the program is open to research projects with a primary focus on one of the following disciplines: sociology, political science, mass communication, economics. Ideally the research projects combine two or more of the above mentioned disciplinary perspectives.

MA/PhD in Intercultural Humanities

The Graduate Program Intercultural Humanities provides students with insights into the theories and methods used to investigate and describe inter- and transcultural processes and phenomena. Students become acquainted with the particularities of research in History as well as with interdisciplinary approaches applied in intercultural studies in the humanities. By studying exemplary cases of intercultural encounters, cross-cultural transfers and transcultural universals students learn how these theories and methods are applied  and, in a second step, across the fields. In particular, they acquire an understanding of the historical dimension of the relevant processes and phenomena and an awareness of the specific problems involved in interactions between Western and Non-Western cultures, cultural and aesthetic products and societies.

MA in International Relations

The substantive focus of the MA program in International Relations: Global Governance and Social Theory is the analysis of governance beyond the nation state. This research topic is examined from a political science perspective, and within the context of enduring processes of globalization and increasing cross-border activity. This emphasis on the governance perspective and the explicit integration of general social theoretical questions in the context of social and political change is a unique feature of the M.A. in International Relations. Students will participate in a small, relatively specialized, and academically rigorous, all English degree program. The degree is accredited by the German accreditation agency ACQUIN. The program is offered jointly by Jacobs University Bremen and the University of Bremen.

MA in Global Visual Communication

The Master’s Program in Global Visual Communication at Jacobs University is designed for an international student body and a faculty strongly committed to transdisciplinary studies. Research cooperations have been established with universities in Brazil, China, Europe, Japan, India, and the United States. Excellent multimedia facilities are available in the Behavioral and Social Sciences Laboratory. This Master’s program provides students with the competencies necessary to understand both the complex structures of contemporary media and communication systems, and the fundamental changes that they are currently undergoing.

University of Bremen, Social Sciences

BIGSSS - Berlin International Graduate School of Social Sciences

The Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS) is a provider for excellent international doctoral education. We aim at integrating outstanding areas of graduate education and research at the University of Bremen and at Jacobs University. BIGSSS is founded upon the core disciplines of political science, sociology and psychology, and supported by a solid foundation in social-science methods. It also integrates neighboring disciplines such as law, economics, public health and mass communication.

InIIS - Institut für Interkulturelle und Internationale Studien (Institute for Intercultural and International Studies) at the University of Bremen

The InIIS is an interdisciplinary research institute where processes of social and cultural change affecting modern societies, and related problems of integration, are examined from the perspective of the social and political sciences and political philosophy. Research at the institute has three foci: first, changes in collective identities and other elements of public culture, cultural differentiation, and the persistence or emergence of multiple cultures and group identities with related conflict at the national and international level; second, the causes, forms, and consequences of processes of globalization and denationalization; and third, the relationships between these two processes.

Other Institutes

SFB 597 - Collaborative Research Center 597 "Transformations of the State"

This research center, set up in January 2003, is supported by the University of Bremen, the Jacobs University Bremen, and the Bremen University of Applied Sciences. The center’s 15 subprojects, and two associated projects, are examining whether the modern state that developed in the core countries of the OECD world over the second half of the last century has experienced a generally observable and uniform trend of change. A second research phase will ask where pressures for change have come from, and whether processes of change have had a transformative effect. A third research phase will clarify the effect of processes of change on the availability of the normative goods of modern statehood (security, welfare, legitimation).