The Institute for Advanced Study in Berlin (german: Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin) is an interdisciplinary institute founded in 1981 in Grunewald,

Berlin Berlin ( , ) is the capital and largest city of Germany by both area and population. Its 3.7 million inhabitants make it the European Union's most populous city, according to population within city limits. One of Germany's sixteen constitu ...

Germany Germany,, officially the Federal Republic of Germany, is a country in Central Europe. It is the second most populous country in Europe after Russia, and the most populous member state of the European Union. Germany is situated betwee ...

, dedicated to research projects in the natural and social sciences. It is modeled after the original IAS in Princeton, New Jersey and is a member of

Some Institutes for Advanced Study The Some Institutes for Advanced Study (SIAS) consortium organizes ten "institutes for advanced study" founded on the same principles as the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton. The members are: * Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, ...

. The purpose of the institute is to offer scholars and scientists the opportunity to concentrate on projects of their own choosing for one academic year, free from administrative duties. The institute embraces a balance of both distinguished senior scholars and promising younger researchers, drawn from a wide range of cultural backgrounds. The institute has been headed by historian Barbara Stollberg-Rilinger as rector since September 2018.

Principals of the institute

Fellows at the Wissenschaftskolleg are chosen with no restrictions on country of origin, discipline, or academic position. With the help of an international advisory board, invitations to scholars and scientists, are designed to promote exchange across disciplinary boundaries and among researchers from different cultures. At the heart of the Wissenschaftskolleg is the idea that researchers must be free to choose their own distinctive research projects. The fellows' only obligations are to reside at the Wissenschaftskolleg, and to meet once a day for a meal and each Tuesday for the weekly colloquium. At each Tuesday colloquium, one Fellow presents his or her work to the other Fellows followed by an hour of rigorous discussion.

Alumni/alumnae

Among the alumni/alumnae of the Institute for Advanced Study Berlin are

Carolyn Abbate Carolyn Abbate (born November 20, 1956) is an American musicologist, described by the '' Harvard Gazette'' as "one of the world’s most accomplished and admired music historians". She is currently Paul and Catherine Buttenwieser University Profess ...

Svetlana Alpers Svetlana Leontief Alpers (born February 10, 1936) is an American art historian, also a professor, writer and critic. Her specialty is Dutch Golden Age painting, a field she revolutionized with her 1984 book ''The Art of Describing''. She has also ...

Philippe Ariès Philippe Ariès (; 21 July 1914 – 8 February 1984) was a French medievalist and historian of the family and childhood, in the style of Georges Duby. He wrote many books on the common daily life. His most prominent works regarded the change in t ...

, Peter Burke, Lorraine Daston,

Jon Elster Jon Elster (; born 22 February 1940, Oslo) is a Norwegian philosopher and political theorist who holds the Robert K. Merton professorship of Social Science at Columbia University. He received his PhD in social science from the École Norma ...

Ute Frevert Ute Frevert (born 10 June 1954 in Schötmar, Bad Salzuflen, North Rhine-Westphalia) is a German historian. She is a specialist in modern and contemporary German history, as well as social and gender history. In January 2008, she was appointed mana ...

Clifford Geertz Clifford James Geertz (; August 23, 1926 – October 30, 2006) was an American anthropologist who is remembered mostly for his strong support for and influence on the practice of symbolic anthropology and who was considered "for three decade ...

Carlo Ginzburg Carlo Ginzburg (; born April 15, 1939) is an Italian historian and proponent of the field of microhistory. He is best known for ''Il formaggio e i vermi'' (1976, English title: ''The Cheese and the Worms''), which examined the beliefs of an Ital ...

, Anthony Grafton,

Hans Werner Henze Hans Werner Henze (1 July 1926 – 27 October 2012) was a German composer. His large oeuvre of works is extremely varied in style, having been influenced by serialism, atonality, Stravinsky, Italian music, Arabic music and jazz, as well as ...

Albert O. Hirschman Albert Otto Hirschman (born ''Otto-Albert Hirschmann''; April 7, 1915 – December 10, 2012) was a German economist and the author of several books on political economy and political ideology. His first major contribution was in the area of de ...

Stanislaw Lem Stanislav and variants may refer to: People *Stanislav (given name), a Slavic given name with many spelling variations (Stanislaus, Stanislas, Stanisław, etc.) Places * Stanislav, a coastal village in Kherson, Ukraine * Stanislaus County, Cali ...

Hilary Putnam Hilary Whitehall Putnam (; July 31, 1926 – March 13, 2016) was an American philosopher, mathematician, and computer scientist, and a major figure in analytic philosophy in the second half of the 20th century. He made significant contributions ...

, Elaine Scarry,

Quentin Skinner Quentin Robert Duthie Skinner (born 26 November 1940) is a British intellectual historian. He is regarded as one of the founders of the Cambridge School of the history of political thought. He has won numerous prizes for his work, including t ...

, Sa'diyya Shaikh, and

Bernard Williams Sir Bernard Arthur Owen Williams, FBA (21 September 1929 – 10 June 2003) was an English moral philosopher. His publications include ''Problems of the Self'' (1973), ''Ethics and the Limits of Philosophy'' (1985), ''Shame and Necessity'' ...

References

External links

Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin, website
Research institutes in Germany Research institutes established in 1981 Organisations based in Berlin Institute for Advanced Study {{Sci-org-stub