Ariane Brill
Completed associated project

Funded by the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community

This research project addresses the almost twenty-year history of the Leibniz Association, which has not yet been systematically told.
In making pertinent records available and analysing them, it pursues the question as to how the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Scientific Community (WGL) succeeded during the course of its existence so far in establishing itself in competition with the other major research organisations at national level. The objective is to carve out the historical development from the prehistory of the foundation of the ‘Blue List Scientific Community’ in 1995 to today’s state as a history of progressive professionalisation.
At the heart of the primary research are, first, the individual stages of institutional structure acquisition, and second, the question as to the internal and external legitimation of the WGL and the development of its own corporate identity, as well as third, the positioning towards the already existing or parallel emerging research organisations of the Max Planck Society, the Fraunhofer Society and the Helmholtz Association. In this context, the project addresses the self-perception of the Leibniz Association, its handling of acceptance problems and its appearance in public, as reflected above all in the media.