PUBLICATIONS
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report
Academic Year 2023/2024We are pleased to release our 2023-2024 annual report, which captures a year of intellectual risk-taking, creative friction – and, most importantly, the urgent pursuit of a more just and sustainable future.
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book
Seeds for Democratic FuturesSeeds For Democratic Futures offers thought-provoking and policy-relevant approaches to democratizing contemporary states and societies.
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book
Beyond Neoliberalism and Neo-illiberalismEconomic Policies and Performance for Sustainable Democracy
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report
Academic Year 2022/2023This annual report represents the first year of operation of our Academic Directors, Markus Gabriel and Anna Katsman, covering the Academic Year from September 2022 to the end of June 2023.
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report
For the Years 2020–2022In this report, with a foreword by our Founding Director Wilhelm Krull, we outline the evolution of our program and research architecture in the founding and construction phase, as it entered its second full year of fellowship work in 2022.
LATEST MEDIA
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public event
Reading Club #3: Middlemarch by George EliotIn our Book Club, we meet every last Tuesday at 6 pm to discuss the book of the month: what moved us, challenged us, puzzled us, or sparked new ideas.
This week on the menu: Middlemarch by George Eliot.
Events |
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public event
Reading Club #4: Revolutionary Petunias by Alice WalkerIn our Book Club, we meet every last Tuesday at 6 pm to discuss the book of the month: what moved us, challenged us, puzzled us, or sparked new ideas.
This week on the menu: Revolutionary Petunias by Alice Walker.
Events |
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public event
Plan B for the climate?Climate neutrality remains the goal in the fight against climate change. But the necessary steps are repeatedly being slowed down worldwide. Journalist Stephanie Rohde talks to sociologist Jens Beckert and economist Susanne Dröge from the Federal Environment Agency about realism in climate policy and the question: What is Plan B for the climate?
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public event
Sold Out! Helmut-Schmidt-Zukunftspreis 2025Join us on May 22 at Thalia Theater Hamburg when Sasha Waltz and Olafur Eliasson are awarded with the Helmut Schmidt Future Prize 2025.
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Press
Helmut-Schmidt-Zukunftspreis 2025Olafur Eliasson and Sasha Waltz are honored for their cultural innovation and commitment to the protection of democracy and nature.
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Can Feminism be African?
Program Chair Minna Salami on the question: Can feminism be African?
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What comes after the end of progress?
Program Chair Kohei Saito on the end of progress.
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How does finance shape our world today?
Program Chair Aris Komporozos-Athanasiou on uncovering finance’s hidden impact.
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The OKOBI Model
Program Chair Kenneth Amaeshi on how the OKOBI model can tackle the problem of youth unemployment
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Why, on a planet so rich in biodiversity, do we rely on just a few crops to feed the world?
Program Chair José Luis Chicoma on the power forces defining food?
PROGRAMS
Our programs are guided by focused research questions connected to the areas of the Human Condition in the 21st Century, the Future of Democracy, and Socio-economic Transformation. They are year-long collaborative research groups composed of about three fellows led by a program chair. Fellows live and work in the Warburg Ensemble for the duration of the program.
2024/25
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Beyond Capitalism: War Economy and Democratic Planning
How can we create a fairer, sustainable society amidst global crisis, using a democratic 'war economy' and redefined concepts of freedom and progress?
This program explores the concept of a democratically driven 'war economy' as a means to reshape society towards equality and sustainability amidst global crises. It aims to redefine notions of freedom and progress in response to the unfolding planetary catastrophe.
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Africapitalism: Shared Entrepreneurship for Economic Development
How are community-based businesses economically empowering rural and urban Africa?
Capitalism receives criticism for its negative impacts, despite its benefits. Efforts to reform it are underway. Based on the concept of Africapitalism, this program explores fit-for-purpose capitalism and promotes shared entrepreneurship rooted in communal ties, offering a blueprint for addressing poverty and inequality. The program emphasizes the importance of indigenous approaches to economic empowerment in Africa and aims to contribute to the global discourse on the transformation of capitalism.
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Futures of Capitalism: Radical Democracy and the Financial Imagination
How do the workings of financial markets shape our social reality, and how can practices of speculation and distortion become tools of radical democratic imagination?
The Futures of Capitalism program seeks to develop a new language for analyzing, critiquing, and reforming the complex configurations through which finance exerts its influence. Bringing together scholars and artists representing diverse fields of research and practice, our work will be organized around three interconnected streams, each reflecting a core tenet of capitalist dynamics: technology, society, and politics.
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The Future of Food: Power and Biodiversity
How can harnessing biodiversity enable progressive power shifts in the food system?
Without a significant, proactive, and sustained long-term change in the power forces defining food, which includes recognizing the pivotal role of biodiversity and the imperative to diversify food production and consumption, it is hard to imagine achieving sustainable, healthy, inclusive, and fair food systems. In this project, we will address these and other challenges by identifying obstacles arising from power asymmetries and offering multidisciplinary and systemic solutions. We will provide a comprehensive analysis on biodiversity and power, developing concrete multidisciplinary recommendations to promote food systems diversification.
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Planetary Governance
How can planetary governance reform proposals be implemented?
This program will tackle the implementation of the Climate Governance Commission's report Governing Our Planetary Emergency to refine, sharpen, and move forward with the implementation of critical climate governance reform.
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Bitter Victory: Is Victory possible in the 21st Century?
Terror, violence, and wars persist relentlessly, affecting every corner of our planet. Civil and civic, socio-political, economic, scientific, and cultural discourses are contaminated by the pervasive presence of militant rhetoric and warrior-like language. Our project aims to dissect and compare the evolution of victory doctrines and explore their implications on the termination of violence and establishment of peace.
FELLOWS
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Kristin Reynolds
Chair and Associate Professor of Food Studies, The New School
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María Fernanda Mideros Bastidas
University of the Andes
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Maria Etemore Glover
Impact Investors Foundation, CEO
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Giulia Dal Maso
University of Venice Ca' Foscari, National University of Singapore
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Onya Idoko
UCL, Co-Programme Leader & Lecture
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Kirstin Munro
The New School for Social Research
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Scott Walker
Systemic Innovation, CEO
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Jude Chukwunyere Iwuoha
University of Agriculture and Environmental Sciences
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Christian Iaione
LUISS University, Professor of Public and Administrative Law
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Nicolás Rovegno Arrese
Fisheries Transparency Initiative, Regional Coordinator for Latin America
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Naomi Nwokolo
UN Global Compact Network Nigeria
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Liz Willetts
Strategic Advisor and Consultant Biodiversity and Health, Planetary Health, and One Health
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Donald Amaeshi
University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business
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Cima Sholotan
IHS Nigeria Limited - Director, Sustainability and Corporate Communications
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Camille Meyer
University of Cape Town Graduate School of Business