New Excellence Cluster at FAU: Transforming Human Rights
FAU University has secured a new Cluster of Excellence: “Transforming Human Rights,” with funding of €30 million over seven years, plus €7 million in strategic investments. This achievement reinforces FAU’s international role in human rights research.
The cluster aims to analyze and redefine the potential and limits of human rights in a global context shaped by five major megatrends: autocratization, fragmentation of globalization, international migration, global environmental crises, and digitalization.
Its work is inter- and transdisciplinary, integrating law, social sciences, anthropology, computer science, cultural geography, and sustainability. In addition, it involves direct collaboration with activists, organizations, and companies, bridging academic research with practical knowledge.
The cluster is led by Professor Katrin Kinzelbach (Human Rights Politics) and Professor Markus Krajewski (Public Law and International Law). In total, it brings together 25 professors from various fields, committed to strengthening and transforming human rights research through an international network. Among them, Professor Almut Schilling-Vacaflor is one of the Principal Investigators (PIs) of the Cluster of Excellence.
Professor Schilling-Vacaflor’s research focuses on the protection of human rights in the context of fragmented economic globalization, as well as rights-based approaches to promote just sustainability and address global environmental crises.
One of her main tasks is to foster and strengthen methodological diversity. Transdisciplinarity plays a particularly important role for the professor of International Business, Society, and Sustainability: it involves the joint production of knowledge, not only across different academic disciplines but also through close exchange and dialogue with practice.
This is also a fundamental principle of the Cluster of Excellence “Transforming Human Rights”: to incorporate practical knowledge, human rights activists, as well as organizations and companies, actively participate in the research work. “We are also interested in their perspectives and solutions when it comes to strengthening human rights,” emphasizes Almut Schilling-Vacaflor.