Project Work

Academic: Natascha Zaun

What does it mean for a country to be considered “safe” – and safe for whom? In this workshop, students explore this question through a simulation of EU policymaking on the recently adopted Safe Third Country Regulation, taking on the roles of the European Commission, EU member states in the Council, and political groups in the European Parliament. Starting from a Commission proposal, they will negotiate competing positions and ultimately try to reach an agreement in trilogue negotiations. The simulation provides first-hand insights into how different interests, political preferences and institutional roles shape EU policymaking and its outcomes. At the same time, it invites students to reflect critically on the policy they are negotiating: what understanding of safety underpins the regulation, whose security does it seek to protect, and whose insecurity might it create or reinforce?

Academic: Valentin Schatz

In this project group, we will examine the phenomenon of the Russian ‘Shadow Fleet’, a large clandestine network of oil and gas tankers used to evade sanctions imposed by Western States and the EU after the 2022 Russian invasion of Ukraine. As a result of the sanctions, these tankers, which usually fly so-called ‘flags of convenience’ or fraudulent flags, do not have access to adequate insurance for marine casualties or classification societies ensuring compliance with international environmental and safety standards. Therefore, the operation of the ‘Shadow Fleet’ creates many risks ­ including for the marine environment. In dealing with these risks, States and international organizations face intricate legal challenges, some of which we will touch upon in this project group.

Academic: Tuba Sari

Stricter border controls, more restrictive asylum regulations and expanded surveillance are increasingly shaping European migration and asylum policy. At the same time, the EU is placing greater emphasis on cooperation with transit and neighbouring countries along European migration routes, such as Libya and Morocco, in order to extend migration control beyond its own territory. The events in the autonomous territory of Ceuta in July 2026 illustrate the extent to which European migration control can depend on cooperation with third countries and how closely issues of security, development policy, and migration are interconnected. But what are the consequences of viewing migration primarily through the lens of securitization, and how do migration, security and development policies influence one another?

Academic: Rebecca Endtricht

Ideas about national belonging shape how societies distinguish between “us” and “them”. They can turn migrants and minorities into perceived threats, particularly by interpreting visible characteristics, cultural practices, or religious symbols as markers of foreignness, criminality, or disloyalty. In this way, questions of belonging can become questions of security and contribute to social exclusion and conflict. At the same time, a shared national identity can foster solidarity and cooperation across social, ethnic, and religious differences. The project therefore asks: Who is recognized as belonging to society? When does national identity intensify social divisions, and when can it help to bridge them? What could an inclusive understanding of national belonging look like?

Academic: Maxine Rubin

In the 2010s, the International Criminal Court (ICC) received notable pushback from the African Union and some African states, such as Sudan and Kenya. They accused the Court of being neo-colonial, anti-African, and of practising selective justice. This led to a decade of threatened withdrawals from some African member states and different levels of cooperation and non-cooperation with ICC requests and arrest warrants. Since then, the ICC has broadened its scope of investigations but still faces withdrawal threats and even sanctions. Is the accusation that the ICC is an instrument of neo-colonialism harnessed by Western states convincing and does this justify non-cooperation with the Court by its member states?

Academic: Florian Unger

Globalisation has significantly increased international trade and investment flows across countries. Yet in recent years, the global trading system has faced mounting challenges, marked by growing uncertainty and increasing geopolitical tensions. As the world confronts the most extensive trade conflicts in modern history, countries move away from joint agreements facing a trade-off between escalation and cooperation. In project groups, you will develop visionary and critical contributions to the following key question: Which strategies of escalation and cooperation will shape the future of globalisation?
 

Academic: Nike Hornbostel

Uncertainty is everywhere.
We rarely have all the information we need – especially when something goes wrong. We fill gaps with assumptions, interpret other people's behaviour and look for people we can trust.
But what happens when uncertainty enters a network?
In this project, we explore how people, groups and organizations deal with uncertainty before, during and after escalation. How does uncertainty influence trust, communication and decision-making? When does uncertainty become conflict? How can conflict spread through networks – and what enables people to rebuild cooperation afterwards?
Students will investigate these dynamics through scientific research, experiments and real-world examples. They will map networks, identify critical moments and explore possible interventions that can turn uncertainty into learning, cooperation and resilience.

Don’t take sides. Map the system.
 

Academic: Wolfgang Minatti

How do members of armed organisations become willing and able to kill? How do these organisations foster group cohesion? And how do civilians become combatants ready to sacrifice their lives for their comrades? Focusing on various armed organisations – from terrorist organisations to rebel groups to state forces – we scrutinise the imaginaries of masculinity dominant in these organisations and their role in allowing for escalation of violence as well as cooperation between group members.
 

Global, regional, and local climate changes pose some of the greatest challenges for natural systems as well as human societies and infrastructures. Despite international efforts to reduce greenhouse gas emissions and adapt to change, climatic pressures continue to increase – in intensity, frequency, and  spatial extent. Climate resilience describes the capacity of ecological, societal, and infrastructural  systems to withstand, adapt to, or transform in response to disturbances. It can be assessed through multiple dimensions, such as the robustness of physical infrastructure, the adaptive capacity of institutions and communities, the diversity and redundancy of natural systems, and the speed at which systems can return to or redefine a stable state after disruption. Resilience is threatened when stressors exceed a system’s ability to cope. Building climate resilience and the capacity to actively shape change is thus a central, cross-cutting necessity.

Academic: Laura Altstadt and Markus Groth 

Climate change is placing increasing pressure on critical infrastructure that provides essential services such as energy, water, transport, healthcare and communication. Because these systems are highly interconnected, climate impacts on one infrastructure can cause cascading disruptions across society. Climate adaptation aims to reduce these vulnerabilities and strengthen the capacity of infrastructure systems to withstand, respond to and recover from changing conditions. This topic explores how critical infrastructure can be made more secure, adaptable and resilient in a changing climate.

Academic: Christine Nam

Europe's critical infrastructure ecosystem spans eleven sectors that safeguard societal stability and economic prosperity. Beneath them lies a largely invisible dependency: space. Satellite communications, positioning and timing services, and Earth observations underpin everything from emergency response and energy distribution to banking networks and transportation systems. Because these capabilities operate seamlessly in the background, their uninterrupted availability is often assumed. The loss of space services, however, could rapidly translate into disruption on the ground, exposing a significant and often overlooked security vulnerability. What happens when climate change disrupts the space services Europeans depend on?

Academic: Bettina Steuri and Jo-Ting Huang-Lachman

The Climate-Resilient City: Who, Where, and How?
Cities are on the frontline of climate change. However, climate risks are not experienced equally: a shaded apartment with good insulation, a top-floor flat under a dark roof, a tree-lined street or a sealed courtyard can make a huge difference. And vulnerability depends not only on buildings and infrastructure, but also on age, income, health, mobility and social networks. In this workshop, we explore how climate change interacts with the urban environment and creates different risks for different people. We will investigate real-world examples and develop ideas for making cities more resilient, inclusive and liveable – and think critically on not only how to make cities climate-resilient, but also for “whom”, especially those most at risk.

Academic: Lukas Tank

There are forms of climate activism that are clearly morally permissible. No one should be blamed for joining an authorized protest march. But are all forms of climate activism morally justified? And if not, where do the boundaries of what is still permissible lie: when legality, civility, or only when non-violence is overstepped? This project will develop proposals to answer these questions.

The world of work faces several crises and corresponding needs for transformation. This situation implies severe insecurities that hit both employers and workers. Yet, insecurities and the means to cope with them are unequally distributed, often further disadavantaging marginalized members of society in terms of health, wealth, and future prospects. In "work and justice", we will explore these dynamics together from a psychological point of view. 

Academic: Oliver Genschow

The more people believe in free will, the more they would punish others for their wrongdoings or to reward them for doing good things. The question is whether people’s belief in free will also relates to the perception of whether a punishment or reward is just. We will answer this question empirically.

Academic: Daniel Eckert

Young people are not only the leaders of tomorrow – they will also inherit the consequences of today's decisions. Yet their perspectives are often overlooked, and they remain absent from the decision-making table. In times of growing insecurity, including young voices in shaping decisions and policies for sustainability has become more critical than ever.

Academic: Monika Wulz

Scientists are expected to provide us with knowledge about the empirical and social reality. However, their knowledge does not simply appear out of nowhere. Academic research is a kind of work that requires time, research tools, financial resources, possibilities of collaboration and networking. Under what social, economic, and institutional conditions has academic research taken place, and under what conditions does it take place today? How has it been funded, and how is it funded today? Taking the academic community of Leuphana as a starting point, this course provides a historical-ethnographic exploration into the conditions of academic work today.

Academic: Vera-Simone Schulz

This project group interrogates how colonial histories continue to shape the present through images, objects, archives, architecture, landscapes, elements of the environment, and forms of knowledge and centers counter-archives, approaches, and narratives. We will examine the work of contemporary artists who engage critically with colonial histories and their ongoing legacies. Drawing on decolonial theory and practice, we will consider how histories are constructed, whose knowledge is recognized, and what is frequently marginalized or erased. The group focuses on scholarly approaches and artistic practices that unsettle inherited ways of seeing, knowing, and representing the past, including new challenges such as the biases of AI. We will ask what forms of decolonial work can contribute to epistemic justice and transform our relationship to histories that remain unfinished.

Academic: Kevin Drews

The concept of “postmigration” emerged in German theatre in the late 2000s and quickly became influential in the arts, culture, and academia. Initially conceived as an umbrella term for articulating the perspectives of children and grandchildren of so-called “Gastarbeiter” (guest workers) and for aesthetically negotiating the worlds they inhabit as subsequent generations, the concept has since evolved into a broader framework for rethinking society as fundamentally shaped by migration. Work constitutes a central arena in which such social negotiations take place. It is not merely a means of generating economic income, but is also deeply intertwined with questions of social status, identity, and belonging, and, consequently, with the narratives through which work and society are imagined and represented. The project offers an insight into different postmigrant ways of narrating work, from stories of upward social mobility to precarious and invisible forms of labour. Against this backdrop, we will discuss new narratives and forms of thinking about the relationship between work and society. And: How can we tell the story of a different world of work?
 

AI is a daily driver of new perspectives on the future, but also of growing anxieties about our own future, the future of higher education, work, and ultimately society as a whole.

Under the theme “AI & Autonomy,” we explore two opposing questions: How autonomous can AI become in order to improve our everyday lives, our work, our studies, and our well-being? And how much autonomy do we want to give AI without giving up our own autonomy?

To explore these questions, we will examine the technological, ethical, social, and legal boundaries and grey areas of AI and seek ways to navigate them. Our goal is to recognize and shape an in::secure future.

Academic: Marlene Schulz

Recent advances in the field of AI, particularly agentic AI, have once again demonstrated that, as the „autonomy“ of a technical system steadily increases, occasional lapses of control can occur. Such developments have recently led to security incidents caused by AI Agents, which have lately occurred at Anthropic, OpenAI, and Meta. The biggest problem here is the public's misunderstanding of how AI actually works and what autonomy means in the context of non-human agents. The focus topic „AI & Autonomy“ engages with the philosophical question of what we imply by attributing autonomy to human beings vs. to AI models. The main goal here is to draw a clear terminological distinction to develop resilience against misinformation and scaremongering.

Academic: Isabell Sluka

AI is changing how we learn, work, communicate, and make decisions, and universities are no exception to this change: AI can offer new ways to access knowledge and support learning, but it may also affect how we think, interact, and participate in academic life. If machines can increasingly do things that students have traditionally been expected to learn and demonstrate, what should universities be teaching and assessing instead? What do we need to learn in order to think, decide, and act for ourselves, and to connect meaningfully with one another? And what role can and should universities play in supporting this? Together, we will explore these questions and develop critical and visionary ideas for learning, participation, and belonging in the university of the present and future.