At the "Cultural Encounters - Cultural Conflicts" Research Area, researchers at the university work together in ten interdisciplinary research centres.

The research areas of the Cultural Encounters - Cultural Conflicts Research Area range from social transformations, migration, globalisation and different concepts of Europe to human-environment relationships against the backdrop of current and multiple crises. At the centre are questions of the creation of affiliations and distinctions, the constitution and abolition of borders, concretely in the social and abstractly in the symbolic. By interweaving historical and current, regional and global perspectives, the Research Area forms a hub for interdisciplinary initiatives, research projects and networking within the university and beyond.