As decided by the Board of Trustees at its meeting on 13 November 2023, the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS will – in addition to maintaining its current extensive commitment – launch six landmark projects in the near future. With the new projects, the foundation will strengthen Hamburg as a center for music, emerging scholarship, research networking, social engagement and independent journalism, and it will educate students on ways to respond to discrimination, antisemitism and racism. With these new efforts, the foundation will further enhance its cooperation with other foundations, and link its work even more closely with its two subsidiary institutions, Bucerius Law School and the Bucerius Kunst Forum.
More specifically, we look forward to working together with our partners on the following projects:
- The school workshops “Gemeinsam wachsen” (Growing Together)
- The new PhD- and scholarship program “Ungewissheit” (Uncertainty)
- Commissions for compositions in the field of “new music” with the “Ensemble Resonanz” in Hamburg
- The project “Hamburg Contemporary. Academy and Music Festival” at the Hochschule für Musik und Theater Hamburg
- The joint initiative “Zukunftswege Ost” (Paths Forward in the East) on strengthening civil society engagement in Eastern Germany
- “Publix”, the center of expertise on quality journalism in Berlin
School Workshops “Gemeinsam wachsen”
The new ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS “Gemeinsam Wachsen” (Growing Together) workshops will create a setting for addressing problems which are unfortunately a part of daily life at many schools: discrimination, exclusion, racism, sexism, anti-Muslim racism, antisemitism. In particular, the focus is on combating the growing level of antisemitism that is increasingly exhibited in schoolyards and on social media.
The workshops are targeted primarily at schools participating in the WEICHENSTELLUNG (Setting the Course) mentoring program and aim to raise young people’s awareness of their own identity as well as the issues of diversity and discrimination. In the first phase of the workshop, interested WEICHENSTELLUNG partner schools can review the existing portfolio of courses and select one that is suitable for their students (grades 7 and up) and thereafter submit an application to the foundation. The workshops will be conducted beginning in February 2024 and feature the involvement of various partner institutions, such as the Landesinstitut, “Bildung am Millerntor” and “Mosaig e.V.”, as well as special coaches.
PhD Program “Ungewissheit”
With “Ungewissheit” (Uncertainty), the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS is establishing a new international and interdisciplinary scholarship program that will support junior researchers in the humanities and the social sciences, as well as in the fields of law and economics, who are writing a doctoral dissertation addressing societal developments and concerns of the future. The projects of grant recipients should aim to produce determinations and points of reference that will allow for a more systematic consideration of the factor of uncertainty. In addition to scholarship funding, the program also looks to encourage dialogue between the disciplines and facilitate an exchange of research findings.
The new program builds on the foundation's previous PhD scholarship programs, which were also topic based and internationally oriented. With total budgeting exceeding 7.8 million euros, programs undertaken over the past twenty years have provided grant support to more than 260 outstanding humanities scholars and social scientists working towards their doctorates. PhD funding was first initiated in 2000 with a German-language doctoral program fostering the work of historians addressing the relationship of Germany with its Eastern European neighbors (“Deutschland und seine östlichen Nachbarn – Beiträge zur europäischen Geschichte”). This was followed by three English-language programs that ran until 2023 and which focused on, respectively, migration research (“Settling Into Motion”), expansion of the European neighborhood (“Trajectories of Change”) and research on national borders (“Beyond Borders”). The new “Ungewissheit” program is being developed in cooperation with Bucerius Law School and reinforces the strategy of the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS to link its work more closely with the university.
New Music with “Hamburg Contemporary. Academy and Music Festival” and the “Ensemble Resonanz”
With two new projects, the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS aims to strengthen Hamburg as a central musical stage also in the field of “new music” and in so doing make the genre more accessible to a general audience. One of these projects is the program “Hamburg Contemporary”, which will feature various elements designed for both music students as well as the Hamburg public. With an international academy, a music festival, expert-level classes lasting several days, and a Europe-wide network of students, the program aims to fuel the next generation of musicians.
The second funding project relates to commissions for new music as awarded by “Ensemble Resonanz”. “Ensemble Resonanz” is one of the world’s leading chamber orchestras and captivates listeners with buoyant compositions joining old and new music. The orchestra’s unique communication concept will now also be used to introduce new audiences to contemporary music. Towards this end, the orchestra will commission arrangements that combine current music with social issues such as feminism, anti-racism or the reappraisal of colonial heritage. In reaching out to new audiences, the project aims especially at school classes and university-level students, who will be addressed via educational programs, rehearsal visits or the platform “resonanz.digital”. The effort is being undertaken in cooperation with Hamburg’s Ministry of Culture and Media, the German Federal Cultural Foundation and the Ernst von Siemens Music Foundation and will be a further contribution to Hamburg as a center of music.
“Zukunftswege Ost” – Strengthening Civil Society Engagement in Eastern Germany
Disenchantment with politics and dissatisfaction with German democracy is measurably broader among citizens in Germany’s eastern federal states as compared to other parts of the country. At the same time, countless East Germans are passionately committed to the common good, helping with the settlement of refugees or organizing themselves in environmental, community or sports associations. “Zukunftswege Ost” (Paths Forward in the East), the new joint initiative established by foundations, companies, civil society networks, politicians and the media, aims to address both of these dimensions and purposefully strengthen those who are committed to social cohesion. At the same time, an interest in democracy should be rekindled among people who are disenchanted with politics and social dialogue should be generally promoted. The project thus provides targeted support for regional democracy and contributes to the resilience of civil society.
The architects of the joint initiative are four foundations for which the common good and an open, tolerant society are central. Alongside the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS, the Cellex Foundation in Dresden, the Stiftung Bürger für Bürger from Halle and the Freudenberg Foundation from Weinheim are participating in the initiative. Acting cooperatively, the project’s reach and impact should be multiplied and region-specific expertise pooled. As embodied in the close institutional teamwork that is envisioned, the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS is underscoring its overall strategy of enhancing its cooperation with other foundations in the future.
“Publix”- A Home for Journalism
With “Publix”, the ZEIT STIFTUNG BUCERIUS is funding a project for quality journalism that will be unique in Germany. On a 6,000 square meter space located in Berlin-Neukölln, a new home is being built for journalists, editorial teams and NGOs. Featuring office space, room for events, co-working space and studios, the structure will allow journalistic knowledge and resources to be concentrated in a single center of expertise. The aim of the project and the bundling of professional know-how in a single location is to promote journalistic innovation, to develop strategies against disinformation and to further ensure a diverse and independent media landscape in Germany and Europe. Through the staging of a variety of events, topics under consideration will be brought further into public consciousness.
