The Ernst Cassirer Fellowship Programme

Please note: This programme is currently not available.

About the Programme and the Eligibility Criteria
The Ernst Cassirer Programme was originally conceived as an initiative to help re-establish and strengthen
scholarly and scientific links between German and Scandinavian academia with an emphasis on German–
Swedish ties. The programme was pursued at the Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study (SCAS), in
collaboration with Wissenschaftskolleg zu Berlin and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, with financial support
from VolkswagenStiftung.

In scholarly terms, the main objective of the Ernst Cassirer Programme has been to promote research efforts
involving a critical re-examination of the foundations of the social and cultural sciences, including their
philosophical presuppositions and their relationships to the natural sciences but also to cultural and aesthetic
forms of expressiveness.

Two types of positions have been available within the programme: the Ernst Cassirer Professorship and the
Ernst Cassirer Early Career Fellowship for Postdoctoral Scholars. The position of professor constituted the
core of the programme as a whole and was intended to be held by a distinguished senior scholar from a
German university. The junior position was open to early career scholars at the stage of preparing for their
habilitation.

Three specific forms of activity have intended to safeguard the outreach function of the programme, namely
an Annual Ernst Cassirer Lecture held by the Cassirer Professor, an Annual Ernst Cassirer Symposium on a
theme linked to the theme of the lecture and an Annual Ernst Cassirer Summer School with speakers selected
by the holder of the Cassirer chair and attended by early career scholars from the Nordic countries but also
from Germany and other European countries.

The first round of the programme was realised over a six-year period, starting in 2003. In January 2013, a
concluding symposium involving previous Cassirer professors but also other prominent senior and early career
scholars within the relevant field was held at the Collegium.

Swedish Collegium for Advanced Study and Lichtenberg-Kolleg at Universität Göttingen have submitted a
proposal for a continuation of the Ernst Cassirer Programme. It will entail an even deeper and more sustained
form of German-Swedish scholarly collaboration. Further details about the future Ernst Cassirer Programme
will be available here in due course.