Welcome to Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz! JGU Mainz is a full university that values interdisciplinarity. It has more than 35,000 employees and students from over 120 nations. The University offers 76 subjects with a total of 298 degree programs, which are spread across ten departments and two arts colleges. JGU supports its members in all their endeavors – in keeping with the university’s namesake, Johannes Gutenberg, the inventor of movable type printing, and its motto “The Gutenberg Spirit: Moving Minds – Crossing Boundaries.” Together with Goethe University Frankfurt am Main and Technical University of Darmstadt, JGU is part of the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) strategic alliance. It is also part of the German U15 association, the FORTHEM Alliance, and the Mainz Science Alliance.
The university looks back on a long, if often interrupted, history. The first University of Mainz was founded in 1477 under Bishop Diether von Isenburg. During the turmoil that followed the establishment of the Mainz Republic in 1792, teaching at the university gradually ground to a halt. In 1798, the university was officially abolished under French rule.
Today’s university was founded by the French occupying forces after World War II. In May 1946, the university, now called Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, resumed teaching. The remains of an anti-aircraft barracks, built in 1938 after the remilitarization of the Rhineland during the Third Reich, served as the university’s first buildings and are still in use today. The current President, Prof. Dr. Georg Krausch, has been in office since 2007. He is committed to the continuous development of JGU’s profile in research, teaching, and supporting young researchers.
More information: https://www.uni-mainz.de/
The JGU campus contains buildings representing very different styles of modernist architecture, inspired by major international models. Visit the “Wissen Schafft Raum” website below and watch the 13-minute film for an insight into the fascinating architectural diversity of the campus. Experience this architecture on a campus tour and take enough time for a walk through the university’s botanic garden!
More information: https://wissenschafftraum.uni-mainz.de/
The AS conference takes place in the Philosophicum, which was built between 1964 and 1968. It was built at the same time as the Faculty of Natural Sciences (NatFak) building, whose location on campus it also mirrors: The humanities and natural sciences are thus symbolically equal partners at JGU Mainz.
The Institute of Sociology is located in the immediate vicinity of the Philosophicum, in the Georg Forster Building, perhaps the most impressive building on campus. It was constructed between 2009 and 2013, and it is based on an intelligent energy concept with solar thermal energy and drinking water drainage, as well as thermoactive components. It is named after Georg Forster, an important German anthropologist and natural scientist during the Enlightenment in the 18th century. In 1788, he became head librarian of the Old University of Mainz and joined the Mainz Republic. This was the first, albeit short-lived, German state with civil democratic principles. The importance of sharing and passing on knowledge is captured in the imposing glass façade at the main entrance to the Georg Forster building. This brings together around 500 seminal quotes from 250 famous and lesser-known authors on the topics of knowledge, science, and research.
The Institute of Sociology at JGU Mainz emerged in 1973 from sociology chairs that had previously been located at the Philosophische Fakultät (Helmut Schoeck) and the Fakultät für Rechts- und Wirtschaftswissenschaften (Friedrich Jonas). However, the institute grew only slowly. It experienced an upswing with the appointment of Stefan Hradil in 1991, under whom the new Diploma degree was established alongside the Magister; this brought with it a sharp increase in the number of students. Hradil made social stratification and inequality research into central fields of teaching. Analytical-empirical sociology was significantly advanced by Peter Preisendörfer, who was appointed to JGU Mainz in 2002. Under Preisendörfer and his team (including Jürgen Schiener and Felix Wolter), systematic training in quantitative methods of social research and statistics was incorporated into the curriculum. Regular courses also included the fields of organizational and labor market sociology, environmental sociology, and rational action theory.
More information: https://www.soziologie.uni-mainz.de/chronik/
Today, the Institute of Sociology is a pluralistic – some would even say multi-paradigmatic – institute. It comprises eight working groups: Media Sociology & Social Theory (Sascha Dickel), Social Network Research & Sociology of the Family (Marina Hennig), Sociology of the Body (Tobias Boll), Sociology & Methods of Quantitative Social Research with focus on Economic and Labor Market Sociology (Natascha Nisic), Social Stratification Research (Gunnar Otte), Sociological Theory & Gender Studies (Stefan Hirschauer), Sociology of Technology and Innovation & Social Simulation (Petra Ahrweiler), and Sociology of Knowledge and Education & Qualitative Methods (Herbert Kalthoff). Several of these working groups are involved in the DFG-funded Collaborative Research Center “Human Differentiation” (SFB 1482).
More information: https://www.soziologie.uni-mainz.de/
The teams of Gunnar Otte, Natascha Nisic and Petra Ahrweiler are part of the research unit “Interdisciplinary Public Policy” (IPP), which was established at JGU Mainz in 2014. The IPP is committed to developing new insights into the impact of institutions and policies on people’s decision-making and behavior. It comprises researchers from the disciplines of economics, business administration, computer science, political science, sociology, communication science, psychology and medicine. IPP activities currently revolve around four substantive research areas: resilient lives and inequality; artificial intelligence and public policy; digital and interconnected economies; the future of democracy. IPP maintains the Mainz Behavioral and Experimental Laboratory (MABELLA), which is devoted to cutting-edge experimental research in the social sciences.
More information: https://ipp-mainz.uni-mainz.de/