University of Trier

The next generations will not need a money designed for infinite long-term economic growth, but a sustainable money designed for managing limited and fragile common pool resources and able to support sustainable development and environmental protection. Sustainability studies developed in many areas of research, while in the field of money research there are ongoing studies for the sustainable allocation of financial capitals but not for a sustainable money design, regulation, and functioning. Sus-Money research will cover this gap providing 1) a new framework for the study of the characteristics, regulation, and functioning of a sustainable money; 2) a classification of the sustainable dimensions of the European experiments of monetary innovation; 3) an empirical study on Chiemgauer complementary currency to assess whether this type of money can support a sustainability transition. Sus-Money is a novelty in the panorama of the sociology of money, economics, and sustainability studies because, for the first time, money is studied in the light of a general theory of sustainability (related to politics, economics, ecology, and culture) and with a mixed-method research design. The use of the social mechanisms approach is also a novelty in money studies. Results will provide knowledge useful for the replication of monetary experiments with sustainable aims in different contexts. Sus-Money will open a new field of research and offer also crucial information for the policy debate for a new sustainable money. The hosting institution is Trier University with the supervision of Prof. Andrea Maurer, an internationally renowned expert in the field of economic sociology and social mechanisms. The secondment will take place at the Max Planck Institute for Study of Societies in Cologne with the supervision of the director Prof. Jens Beckert, a prominent international scholar on the field of economic sociology and the study of money.

With the slogan “Brainwaves” the Researchers’ Night in Trier – City Campus meets Illuminale– will be showing that science is for everyone. There is a researcher in all of us. You only need a clever mind and a lot of curiosity. Our aim is to organize a public event showing on the one hand the exciting, interesting side of science and on the other hand how science can improve the citizens' everyday life. Another main target is to enhance public recognition of researchers and their role in society. Practical results of research will be delivered in a comprehensive and illustrative form, showing that science is all around us. To simulate everyday life situations the City Campus is grouped into seven Science Sceneries in the heart of the City. In these Sceneries different research presentation formats will be organized, using new formats of knowledge transfer. To bring science and researchers into peoples’ everyday life, the Sceneries will take place in unusual settings representing peoples’ normal life, e.g. the Science market place with Stage and European Corner, the Scientific Theatre and the area “Science goes to school”. The City Campus program includes hands on experiments and demonstrations, shows, contests, quizzes, exhibitions and much more. A significant number of researchers will participate in public events to interact face-to-face with the public. The visitors – mobilized through an extensive awareness campaign – will be given the chance to touch, feel and smell science. To increase the attractiveness the effective event Illuminale will be integrated in the European Researchers’ Night. Artistic illuminations of buildings and places will be combined with interesting spotlights on several areas of research. These spotlights are a metaphor for science and knowledge. Partners are the Trier University of Applied Sciences, the ttm trier Tourismus & Marketing GmbH and the Municipality of Trier.

PAPA will rewrite significantly the story of the emergence of modern politics, re-evaluate Ancien Régime society, and re-assess the origins of the French Revolution. To do so, it will develop a new way to look at the rise of the public sphere in the 18th century. The focus is on the study of political pamphlets: 1) the PI and his team will establish a new paradigm in the research on illegally published writings, and 2) develop a database that will open tremendous new possibilities for future research in intellectual and political history. 1) According to the dominant narrative, early modern France experienced a growth of state authority, and a decline of aristocratic power. While earlier royal authority was allegedly sacral, the Enlightenment era is presented as an epoch that witnessed the rise of the bourgeoisie and gave birth to a new criticism of both aristocracy and absolutism. The French Revolution is supposedly the result of these long-term processual changes. PAPA will question major theses of 17th- and 18th-century studies supporting this narrative, and develop new venues of research in these fields. PAPA’s main hypotheses are that a) courtiers shaped the 18th-century public sphere in a crucial way, b) 18th-century society and politics show more continuities than ruptures to the 17th century, and c) the French Revolution had at its inception much more in common with 17th-century princely uprisings than has been hitherto recognised. 2) The PAPA research team will create the first database devoted to Ancien Régime pamphlets. As several humanities and social sciences have a keen interest in these sources, the significance of PAPA goes largely beyond historical studies. The PAPA database will enable ongoing analyses of the content of these sources. This will greatly facilitate future research on Ancien Régime France and make scholarly results accessible within and outside academia.

Even though transport had a bad reputation in the discourse of the Roman elites, in recent research it became evident, that it had a vital impact on the prosperity of the Roman economy and thus on the long-term existence of the Roman Empire. Therefore, it is an absolute desideratum to explore Roman inland transport transdisciplinary, combining recent technological developments with experimental data and profound historical research to gain the most realistic transport times. The objective of STRADA is the development of a dynamic computer-based simulation system for water and land borne transport between the Adriatic Sea and the Danube. Thereby, STRADA is geared to three aims: a) the study of the spatial and temporal interconnectivity between Roman Italy and the Danube frontier, for gaining a better understanding of the economic cohesion of the Roman Empire, b) the analysis of the influence of environmental factors on the ancient transport system, c) and the introduction of dynamic simulations into historical research. For the implementation, the project will focus on three closely interwoven strands: The exact reconstruction of the ancient land- and water-routes, the experimental determination of the performance of the used land- and water-borne means of transport under changing environmental conditions, and the development of a time-related simulation system including local fine granular topography and historical weather data, different means of transport (water- and land-based) with different loads, the fatigue of the actors as well as necessary rests and loading times. STRADA will follow a modular design that will ease the sustainable use and a future extension of the simulation system. The chosen research area covers a wide range of landscapes from the Mediterranean lowlands, followed by different kinds of alpine regions, to a central European river landscape, which makes it easy adapt¬able to other times and places.