More about the research centre in the Wortmelder blog!

For some years now, there has been repeated talk of the "end of globalisation". And indeed, the ever-increasing economic integration of the world seems to be slowing down. Geopolitical loyalties of individual countries or power blocs are driving trade more strongly, new competitions are emerging - especially in the high-tech and critical raw materials sectors. What does this mean for us? The new Research Centre for Geo-Economics (EFGEo) at the University of Erfurt is looking into this question. It will receive almost 400,000 euros in funding over the next three years from the Thuringian Ministry for Economis Affairs, Science and Digital Society as part of the Thuringian research, technology and innovation funding programme and is based on the local "Security Capitalism Research Group". "EFGEo" will conduct interdisciplinary basic research at the interface of international political economy, law, international relations and conflict research as well as public policy and link this back to the special situation of the European, German and Thuringian economies. Parallel to this research centre, the new doctoral college "De-Globalisation and Global Decoupling" (DeGlobE) also began its work at the University of Erfurt at the start of 2025. It will be funded by the Hans Böckler Foundation until 2029 with eleven scholarships and a further 567,000 euros. Both the research centre and the doctoral college will therefore be pooling expertise on the topic of geoeconomics and de-globalisation on the Erfurt campus in the coming years. For our research blog "WortMelder", we spoke to Madeleine Böhm, academic coordinator of the doctoral programme since this month, and Jan Ickler, who is a new postdoctoral researcher at the "EFGEo" research centre...

Find the whole interview here.