International Graduate Programme (IGP) of the Cluster of Excellence “The Formation of Normative Orders”

We are living at a time of profound and rapid social changes. These changes are bound up with social conflicts, both within states and beyond them. Whether it is a matter of a just social order under conditions of “globalization” and new technological possibilities or a just “global order” in the face of scarce resources, climate change and armed conflicts –we are confronting challenges of a new kind that cannot be met with traditional conceptions of order. In a world of different cultural self-understandings and traditions, transnational norms and institutions are emerging whose validity is being – and must be – placed in question. Within the Graduate Programme of the Frankfurt Cluster of Excellence, these processes will be analyzed from the standpoint of the formation of normative orders, drawing upon disciplines ranging from philosophy and history to political science and legal studies, in addition to ethnology, economics, theology and sociology.

Graduate training is a central concern of the Frankfurt Cluster. In our view, the doctoral phase should be treated as the central step leading to an independent career in research. As a result our graduate programme is designed to ensure that outstanding young scholars enjoy the best initial conditions for a career in research. These conditions must satisfy two requirements: they should ensure that the members acquire independence from an early stage, while at the same time imparting the skills required to plan their subsequent careers.

The Cluster meets these requirements through a semistructured Gradual Programme whose outstanding features are seminars and tutorials geared to student needs and an innovative approach to supervision.