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Call for Research Proposals: Germany and the United States in the 21st Century
WASHINGTON – The Transatlantic Academy has announced that its ninth fellowship year, running from September 2016 to June 2017, will focus on the topic of ‘Germany and the United States in the 21st Century.’ Resident fellows will examine how the roles of Germany and the United States in Europe and the world are evolving and the implications for bilateral and wider transatlantic relations, for the future of Europe, and for global affairs. A call for proposals has been issued on the Academy’s website.
As Stephen F. Szabo, executive director of the Transatlantic Academy explains, “The German-American relationship is being fundamentally and dramatically reshaped by a rapidly changing geopolitical environment and by domestic changes in both countries. The old relationship has to be transformed in order to create a center of gravity for the West in response to challenges to its cohesiveness and centrality.”
A joint project of The German Marshall Fund of the United States (GMF), the ZEIT-Stiftung Ebelin und Gerd Bucerius, the Robert Bosch Stiftung, the Fritz Thyssen Stiftung, and the Lynde and Harry Bradley Foundation, the Transatlantic Academy is located at GMF’s headquarters in Washington, DC. Each year, the Transatlantic Academy brings together scholars from Europe and North America to work on a single set of issues facing the transatlantic community. Past themes have included the role of religion in foreign policy, immigration and integration in Europe and North America, the changing foreign policy role of Turkey, the transatlantic implications of the rise of China, the competition for natural resources, and challenges to the Western liberal order, both from within Western democracies and from rising non-Western powers. The current Transatlantic Academy fellows are focusing on the relationship between Russia and the West.
The 2016-2017 topic was chosen by the Transatlantic Academy and its partners in light of Germany’s rising leadership role both in the West’s response to Russia’s aggression in Ukraine and in dealing with the euro crisis. This new role has made the German-American partnership more central but divisions between Germany and the United States over U.S. surveillance, trade, security, and other matters, as well as generational change in both countries, pose important challenges to creating a partnership in leadership.
The Academy invites research proposals on several related themes, including:
- What if the European Union Fails? Implications for Germany and the United States
- Germany as a Geo-economic Power
- Germany as a Geo-strategic Power and U.S. Security Partner
- Transatlantic Relations and Societal Change in Germany and the United States
A minimum of four senior and two postdoctoral scholars, three from Europe and three from North America, will work in a collaborative environment from September 12, 2016 – June 16, 2017. Applicants for senior fellowships must have a PhD and professional experience equivalent to that of an associate professor. Applicants for postdoctoral fellowships must have completed their PhD within the last five years. The Transatlantic Academy offers two postdoctoral fellowships. One of them, the Volkswagen Stiftung Fellowship, is reserved for promising young scholars based at German institutions working in a specific field of the humanities. Applications for this fellowship are due to the Volkswagen Stiftung by October 1, 2015, further details can be found here. Other applications should be made directly to the Transatlantic Academy and will be reviewed on a rolling basis beginning in September 2015 with offers made no later than December 2015.