The "Postcolonial Hierarchies" team at the ABI, from the left: Fabricio Rodríguez, Alke Jenss, Miriam Bartelmann and Viviana García Pinzón
Best research environment 2024
The ABI team from the "Postcolonial Hierarchies in Peace and Conflict" network has been shortlisted for the “Best Research Environment 2024” award from the Junge Akademie and the VolkswagenStiftung.
Together with the VolkswagenStiftung, the Junge Akademie is awarding a prize for the best research environment for the first time. The Junge Akademie describes the criteria for a particularly good research environment as follows: "A good research environment promotes good science and research by cultivating individual strengths which combine to form a greater whole that benefits everyone. For scientists and researchers it is important to be part of a research environment that provides room for creativity, fosters successful work, and aims to create a positive working atmosphere." The research environments selected for the award are characterized by openness, creativity, appreciation as well as clear structures, innovative impulses and cooperation that promotes personal growth and scientific excellence.
Miriam Bartelmann and Fabricio Rodríguez from the Hierarchies Project at the ABI talk about their work environment as "protective space to address doubts, challenges, and mistakes, which we regard as inherent aspects of academic life" and a "thriving intellectual environment where personal growth, critical thinking, and innovative research converge to address key questions in the field of peace and conflict": "We put our individual findings and experiences into a critical dialogue that fosters an encouraging space for continuous feedback in the context of think labs, colloquia, and international conferences. The variety of our work helps us to develop our personal projects while connecting our ideas and those of our Latin American counterparts into a broader cartography of knowledge". In particular, the international environment in the project leads to original approaches in science due to the diversity of cultural, intellectual and disciplinary backgrounds.
On June 7, 2025, ten teams will be selected from the shortlist for the award in a random draw. They will each receive prize money of 10,000 euros from the VolkswagenStiftung. The prize money will be made available to the winners by the Junge Akademie for the purpose of advancing their research.