We understand research as a collaborative endeavour, not just within our centre, but also with external partners living and working in a variety of settings around the world. Often bridging the humanities, natural sciences, and computer sciences, our collaborations with research partners generate synergies that strengthen our research methodologically, while also making it more sustainable and more international.

Collaborations with people and institutions outside academia are another key element of our research. We build on the knowledge that the producers, users, and custodians of written artefacts and other community experts share with us. And we contribute methods and insights that support these experts as they care for written artefacts, protect them from damage or destruction, and continue to unlock their potential to catalyse social participation and cultural transmission. In these collaborations in Hamburg and worldwide, UWA’s overarching research questions – How has writing shaped human societies? How have human societies adapted writing to their needs? – become questions about the futures people in our communities envision, work towards, and inscribe in the present.

In line with UWA’s focus on objects and data as the starting point for research, these collaborations unfold at the sites where written artefacts matter today for the people and institutions with whom we work. We see written artefacts used as learning resources, as objects that nurture cultural transmission and cultural identity, and as tools for artistic practices. We also encounter manufacturing traditions centred on the production of writing materials and writing implements. We thus cooperate with students, teachers, and schools, with librarians, curators, conservators and other archive and museum professionals, with artists, and with companies. With them, and often in further, triangular cooperation with our research partners, we design projects that create stronger ties within our local and global communities and support their development, particularly in the areas of education, innovation and infrastructure, and sustainability (in line particularly with UN Sustainable Development Goals 4, 9, and 10).   

In both our research collaborations and our collaborations with partners outside academia, we draw on the vast and uniquely interdisciplinary expertise available in UWA and on UWA researchers’ extensive experience developing and coordinating projects in countries and communities all over the world .

If you are interested in joining or starting a collaboration with us, or if you would like to explore possible new areas or formats for collaboration, please contact UWA’s Knowledge Exchange Coordinator, Mariapaola Gritti (mariapaola.gritti"AT"uni-hamburg.de).