Reemtsma desires to shut the Hamburg Institute for Social Research | EUROtoday

When an institute names a journal after its handle, it’s testifying to its distinctiveness and longevity. Mittelweg 36, because the journal is known as, is now one of the crucial prestigious addresses for the social sciences in Germany. The Hamburg Institute for Social Research (HIS) based mostly there was based forty years in the past by Jan Philipp Reemtsma and has since been financed nearly solely by him. This gave the institute independence from the fast cycles of publicly funded undertaking analysis and allowed it to pursue lengthy historic strains. Nothing indicated a disaster. On the opposite: even the digital transition was mastered with flying colours with the founding of the net portal Soziopolis, which rapidly turned a pacesetter within the social science debate.

The announcement that the institute will probably be closed in 2028, when the time period of workplace of the present director Wolfgang Knöbl ends, comes as a whole shock. Jan Philipp Reemtsma justifies the choice for causes of age. The earlier mannequin, during which the position of the board was restricted to discussing and approving the funds, can not be continued for him. He guidelines out taking up by one other establishment as a result of the institute would then lose its confirmed energy to set its personal agenda independently of all analysis coverage developments.