For the president of the University of Augsburg, Prof Sabine Doering-Manteuffel, this confirms the long-standing strategy of the University of Augsburg to focus on environmental research in the humanities and social sciences. “The environmental humanities have a long tradition at the University of Augsburg, the importance of which is confirmed by renewed funding by the Free State of Bavaria.”

The aim of the doctoral programme is to enrich and expand research on the social-ecological transformation through innovative and interdisciplinary perspectives and questions. Examples of this in the current funding period range from a dissertation on glacial poetics (American studies) to work on historical drill cores in the Belgium archives (Environmental History) to an investigation of reforestation projects in the Philippines (Ethnology). Several projects are based in the Augsburg-Munich region and deal with questions of mobility, environmental education, and participation in the context of the social-ecological transformation. Twenty early career researchers are currently conducting research as part of the “Rethinking Environment” doctoral programme.

From autumn 2025, participating disciplines include:

• American Studies
• Environmental Health Sciences
• Ethnology
• Geography
• History
• Communication Science
• Economics
• Iberian and Latin-American Literary and Cultural Studies
• Theology and Environmental Ethics.

Seven of the four-year positions will be based at the Environmental Studies Center at the University of Augsburg, while five will be based at the Rachel Carson Center at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität in Munich. The second round of funding begins on the 1st of October 2025.

The Bavarian State Minister of Sciences and the Arts, Markus Blume, emphasised: This provides “excellent opportunities for early career researchers from around the world. Through our talent factory, the Elite Network of Bavaria, we are funding the extension of the doctoral programme “Rethinking Environment” for a further four years to the tune of €3.1 million. That means a dozen new doctoral positions for early career researchers in Augsburg and Munich. Thanks to their spirit for research, we can look forward to new perspectives in highly relevant interdisciplinary fields of research in the environmental humanities.”

Homepage of the International doctoral programme “Rethinking Environment”: https://rethinking-environment-idk.de/.
To the call for applications for the 12 doctoral positions (65 % TV-L 13): https://www.uni-augsburg.de/en/forschung/einrichtungen/institute/wzu/studium/idk/cfa/
For more information about the Elite Network of Bavaria, see: https://www.elitenetzwerk.bayern.de/start