GSC 263: Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS)

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The University of Bremen (UB) and the Jacobs University Bremen (Jacobs) are pooling their scientific expertise in the social sciences to establish the "Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences (BIGSSS)". This new school aims at integrating excellent areas of graduate education and research at UB and Jacobs into a synergetic inter-university institution designed to become an internationally competitive model of graduate education. In so doing, BIGSSS builds on the experience and structure of both UB's Graduate School of Social Sciences (GSSS), funded as a model institution by the Volkswagen Foundation since 2002, and Jacobs' interdisciplinary social-science graduate programmes at the School of Humanities and Social Sciences (SHSS) and the Jacobs Center for Lifelong Learning and Institutional Development (JCLL). The guiding principles of BIGSSS are education to excellence, quality assurance and effective funding. BIGSSS is founded upon the core disciplines of political science, sociology and psychology, and supported by a solid foundation in social-science methods. It also integrates neighboring disciplines such as law, economics, public health and mass communication. The project is based on the collaboration of a number of outstanding research institutes at both universities. This cooperation facilitates the early integration of doctoral students into the research environment, and ensures a cutting-edge research orientation in BIGSSS' curricular and thematic development. BIGSSS will integrate two different types of PhD candidates: those working solely on their individual projects (financed by a stipend) and those employed in a research project. In total, BIGSSS will have about 90 to 120 fellows, i.e., doctoral students (on stipends), young researchers and post-docs. Building on innovative research-oriented Masters programmes at both UB and Jacobs, the PhD programme will prepare fellows for leading professional positions inside and outside of academia, both nationally and internationally. For its initial five years, BIGSSS' umbrella theme will be "The Future of Social and Political Integration". The umbrella theme and its thematic fields foster greater coherence among the participating disciplines, thus contributing to increased cross-fertilisation. The theme chosen is crucial for both contemporary policy-making and international social-science debates.