The University of Cambridge and LMU Munich have launched a Strategic Partnership

The University of Cambridge and LMU Munich have officially launched their strategic partnership with an inauguration ceremony in Munich on 26 April 2019. This partnership will see the two institutions forge ever closer links in research and teaching across a broad range of disciplines. In addition, the partnership emphasizes the value of the relationships between British universities and their European partners, irrespective of the outcome of the ongoing Brexit negotiations. Within this framework Professor Dr Martin Schulze Wessel, Speaker of the Graduate School and Chair of East and Southeast European History at LMU Munich, and Dr Hubertus F. Jahn, Reader in the History of Russia and the Caucasus at Clare College in Cambridge, will jointly explore New Perspectives in East and South East European Studies.

New Perspectives in East and South East European Studies

LMU Munich and the University of Cambridge have both long traditions in studying East and South East Europe, but with varying geographic and disciplinary emphases. "This partnership intends to pool the respective expertise providing the opportunity for the development of a unique area studies cooperation which in this breadth does not exist anywhere else," Professor Schulze Wessel praised the new cooperation. 

It is envisaged to broaden the cooperation that already exists between the PIs in Cambridge and Munich through graduate student conferences and invited lectures as well as joint research projects. The goal is to create a network of young scholars who will in the future engage in collaborative research projects clustered around a number of themes that ideally transcend the limits of geographical and disciplinary boundaries.

Several doctoral candidates and postdoctoral researchers of the Graduate School will participate in this cooperation. The opening workshop of this cooperation with project presentations by doctoral candidates from
Cambridge and Munich will take place at the Graduate School 11th – 13th July 2019.

Pooling talents and resources

As Programme Directors, Professor Thomas Ackermann, Dean of the Faculty of Law at LMU, and Professor Chris Young, Head of the School of Arts and Humanities, are responsible for the implementation of all measures taken in the context of the partnership. The major objectives of the collaboration are to pool the existing expertise in important subject areas, to promote the exchange of and exchanges between scholars and scientists, and to identify novel and promising fields of research.

Professor Stephen J. Toope, Vice-Chancellor of the University of Cambridge and Professor Bernd Huber, President of LMU Munich, declared: "In the face of increasingly accelerated scientific developments especially research-intensive universities are facing the challenge to provide flexible and reliable conditions for their researchers. Cooperation and international exchange play a pivotal role in this context. With the Strategic Partnership CAM-LMU we are building a sturdy bridge for current and future cooperation in research and teaching to enable and foster scientific innovation – also in turbulent times."

In 2018, a Memorandum of Understanding formally setting up the partnership was signed by both universities, and the first collaborative projects, beginning in 2019, were selected. “We received 65 proposals from 11 Faculties,” says Ackermann, who himself spent part of his academic career in Cambridge. “And a relatively large proportion of these submissions, 42 in all, were approved for funding.” This in itself demonstrates that, even before the formal inception of the partnership, there was a great deal of scholarly cooperation between groups based in Cambridge and Munich. “We certainly didn’t have to start from scratch,” he says, “and with the resources provided by the strategic partnership we can now broaden our cooperation and make even better use of the existing potential.”

Further information

Please see LMU Munich's press release announcing the inauguration ceremony.