Transformation of Risk and Welfare

Processes of global change, such as deindustrialization, tertiarization, demographic, climate and political change, create new challenges for the welfare of people and societies. With them, they bring changes in the risk structures for individual, economic, social and political actors.  How do these actors deal with the new challenges? What influences the differing development of risk and welfare for different actors? And how do the degree of complexity of risks and the consequences thereof develop for individuals and collective actors?

„Big risks“: perceptions, management and neuralgic societal risks in the 21st century

This project is about the ways in which the public deals with neuralgic societal risks such as climate change, demographic change and state deficits in the 21^st century (“big risks"). It aims to answer overarching questions from the three disciplinary perspectives of practical philosophy, political sociology and financial mathematics. Practical philosophy considers the epistemic difficulties of “knowing" risks and offers normative risk assessments and reactions to them. Political sociology studies the intersection between the political and the societal spheres and is equipped to deal with the effects of social and political positions on individual perceptions. Financial mathematics offers tools for the risk management of quantifiable risks and allows designing instruments for diversification and hedging of risks. The project is funded by the Funk-Stiftung.

AG "Risiko"

Supported by the Main Research Area, various UDE scientist discussed possible research collaborations under the frame of "Insurance and secure personal risks: the interplay of individuals, family, markets, social groups and the state in different regions and eras". The workshop took place on November 28, 2014.

As a result of this workshop, eight UDE scientist from four different faculties formed an interdisciplinary team for further ollaborations: Faculty of Economics (Prof. Jeannette Brosig Koch, Prof. Rüdiger Kiesel), Faculty of Social Sciences (PD Martin Brussig IFS and IAQ and Prof. Achim Goerres, IfP and Sybille Stöbe-Blossey, IfP and IAQ ), the Faculty of Education (Prof. Dirk Hofäcker, and Prof. Carsten Ullrich, Institute of Social Work and Social Policy) and the Faculty of Humanities (Prof. Andreas Niederberger, Department of Philosophy). The informal leadership of this AG currently stands at Prof. Achim Goerres, the initiator of workshop.

Based on the output of this workshop, Prof. Achim Goerres, Prof. Andreas Niederberger and Prof. Rüdiger Kiesel, are now working on a third party funded project called "The Management and Perception of Big Risks". The project is funded by Funk Stiftung for the upcoming years.

DFG Research Training Group 1613 "Risk and East Asia"

The Research Training Group (or Graduiertenkolleg) Risk and East Asia was established in October 2009 as an international and English language doctoral college within the Institute of East Asian Studies (IN-EAST) at the University of Duisburg-Essen, with generous support from the German Science Foundation (DFG) and the University of Duisburg-Essen. The Research Training Group cooperates closely with the White Rose East Asia Centre at the Universities of Leeds and Sheffield in the UK.

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IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies

The IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies constitutes a joint enterprise of researchers at the IN-EAST and colleagues in various faculties and research networks at the University of Duisburg-Essen. It has been founded in order to explore the issue of innovation in East Asia from a multidisciplinary perspective that allows for the generation of new knowledge and the advancement of new methodological approaches. 

The IN-EAST School of Advanced Studies’ research agenda takes the embeddedness of processes of innovation in society as a whole as its general interest. In this context the focus lies on the interdependent topics of electro-mobility and urban systems. All research activities take East Asia (China, Japan, Korea) as subject of their analysis, but provide interfaces for international comparisons and comparative research agendas.

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