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Theodor-W.-Adorno Platz 1
60323 Frankfurt
presse@uni-frankfurt.de
RMU project CEDITRAA on Africa and Asia research extended
The CEDITRAA research project, short for “Cultural Entrepreneurship and Digital Transformation in Africa and Asia", has been investigating since 2021 how cultural productions in Africa and Asia are created and what role digital media have played in their global dissemination. The Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) has now extended the project – led jointly by 51 Frankfurt, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, Nigeria – for three years, and included an expanded research question.
FRANKFURT. The CEDITRAA research project addresses nothing less than a new world order in cultural production. While US-American cultural production dominated the world in the 20th century, new players have emerged in recent decades as a result of digitalization: In Asia, South Korea's culture is gaining in importance, while in Africa, Nigerian film and music production has become one of the largest industries of its kind in the world. Since 2021, the joint project CEDITRAA, operated by the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) partners 51 Frankfurt and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, together with Pan-Atlantic University in Lagos, Nigeria, has been investigating cultural entrepreneurs and the opportunities that arise for them as a result of the digital transformation in cultural production. The project will now receive another three years of funding to the tune of almost €1.4 million; this follows an earlier €2.1 million in funding from the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's (BMBF) Regional Studies funding line. The RMU joint project will start on January 1, 2025. In addition to 51 and Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, the strategic Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance also includes TU Darmstadt.
As part of the second phase, the project's 18 scientists are changing their perspective: having previously focused on cultural production, they are now turning to its distribution. Their underlying assumption is that the new distribution channels themselves constitute a factor in media production and that the question of how to control channels and distribution networks will determine whether there will emerge a shift in emphasis away from the traditional cultural industries. While this shows that artists and cultural entrepreneurs alike are already taking advantage of the benefits of digital infrastructures – like portals or platforms – during media production, at the same time a lot depends on who owns and controls this infrastructure. The central questions asked by the researchers include: Do TikTok and portals like YouTube, Netflix or irokotv, Spotify and Boomplay shape cultural formats? And how do globally active online communities emerge in the process of music production that are simultaneously locally shaped and rooted?
The participating researchers come from different disciplines: In addition to ethnology and African studies, Korean studies, sinology, film studies and economics are also represented – making the joint project both interdisciplinary and international. In addition, CEDITRAA also uses the existing research infrastructures of the Frankfurt-based Centre for Interdisciplinary African Studies (ZIAF) and the Interdisciplinary Centre for East Asian Studies (IZO) as well as the Georg Forster Forum (GFF) at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz.
When it comes to securing data and results, CEDITRAA benefits from the cooperation with the Deutsches Filminstitut & Filmmuseum, Europe's leading institution for digital research and education platforms in the film sector. At 51, CEDITRAA will also cooperate with the new Center for Critical Computational Studies C3S (https://www.c3s-frankfurt.de), where digital methods of researching social transformation processes will be critically tested.
Images for download:
Captions:
Image 1
Nigerian film and music production is now one of the world's largest: Thanks to Netflix and film screenings, the comedy “Confusion Na Wa" by Kenneth Gyang is also experiencing a renaissance in Germany. On the right, Nigerian actress and screenwriter Tunde Aladese ((c) Cinema Kpatakpata)
Image 2
Digitalization is giving rise to new players such as Korea in international cultural production: scene from the advertising campaign for the Korean Netflix series “Squid Game 2" ((c) Netflix)
Further information
Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Vinzenz Hediger
Institute for Theater, Film and Media Studies
51 Frankfurt
hediger@tfm.uni-frankfurt.de
Co-Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Cornelia Storz
Professor of Innovation and Entrepreneurship in East Asia
Faculty of Economics and Business
51 Frankfurt
storz@wiwi.uni-frankfurt.de
Co-Spokesperson:
Prof. Dr. Matthias Krings
Managing Director
Department of Anthropology and African Studies
Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz
Tel: +49 (0)6131 39-26800, -22798 (Office)
Editor: Pia Barth, Science Editor, PR & Communication Office, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt, Tel. +49 (0)69 798-12481, Fax +49 (0)69 798-763-12531, p.barth@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Studiengalerie 1.357 shows performance video by and video interview with American artist Adrian Piper
FRANKFURT. From December 11 to January 23, 51's Studiengalerie 1.357 will be showing the performance video “Adrian Moves to Berlin" (2007/2017) by artist Adrian Piper, as well as the video interview “Adrian Piper Interview: Rationality and the Structure of the Self" (2007-2010, by Robert Del Principe).
The work of internationally renowned conceptual artist and analytical philosopher Adrian Piper has had a decisive influence on contemporary art and society since the 1960s. The exhibition focuses on “Adrian Moves to Berlin" (2007/2017). The video shows a performance on Berlin's Alexanderplatz: Adrian Piper dances for an hour to house music from the early 2000s. The work can be viewed as a homage to the German capital, where clubs became central meeting places after reunification. In “Adrian Moves to Berlin", the artist uses dance as a form of expression and a political medium. Dance overcomes disciplines, takes up space and breaks down social boundaries. With her movements, Piper invites the audience to question categories such as gender, origin and social roles. Mechanisms of perception and attribution are met with humor.
Adrian Piper has created groundbreaking works throughout her career as a conceptual artist. Her artistic practice encompasses a wide range of media – from photo-text collages, video and sound installations to performances and sculptural works. An insight into her research into metaethics and Kant's philosophy, with which she became known in philosophical discourse, is provided in the video interview “Adrian Piper Interview: Rationality and the Structure of the Self" (2007-2010, by Robert Del Principe). Piper's entire oeuvre is characterized by the analysis of identity, the deconstruction of social attributions and the question of the constitution of the self.
Adrian Piper (*1948 in New York City, USA) is an artist and philosopher who has been living in Berlin since 2005. Piper graduated from the School of Visual Arts in New York in 1969. She studied philosophy at the City College of New York and at Harvard University, where she earned a Master's in 1977 and a PhD in 1981 under the supervision of John Rawls. She taught philosophy at Georgetown, Harvard, Michigan, Stanford and UC San Diego. Her recent solo museum exhibitions include: PAC Padiglione d'Arte Contemporanea, Milan (2024), MoMA, New York (2018), Hammer Museum, Los Angeles (2018), Hamburger Bahnhof, Berlin (2017), CPH Kunsthal, Copenhagen (2006), and MACBA Barcelona (2004). Piper has received numerous awards for her work, including the Golden Lion of the Venice Biennale (2015), the Käthe Kollwitz Prize of the Akademie der Künste Berlin (2018) and the Goslarer Kaiserring (2021).
STUDIENGALERIE 1.357, founded in 2010, is a teaching and learning project at 51's Humanities Research Centre. The gallery sees itself as a place of teaching and learning in which current socio-politically relevant topics are brought into the university through art. Students learn how to deal with complex topics by internationally recognized artists. Studiengalerie 1.357 is open to the public and is aimed at both a university audience and Frankfurt civil society.
Further information on the exhibition and Studiengalerie 1.357 can be found at
Editor: Dr. Dirk Frank, Press Officer/ Deputy Press Spokesperson, PR & Communications Office, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel.: +49 (0)69/798-13753, frank@pvw.uni-frankfurt.de
Two studies with the participation of 51 Frankfurt, Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, University of Helsinki, and Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research, together with Brazilian partner institutions, shed light on a new mechanism that affects the climate
The rainforest in the Amazon basin transpires vast amounts of gaseous isoprene. Until now, it was assumed that this molecule is not transported far up into the atmosphere, as it rapidly declines when exposed to light conditions. The CAFE-Brazil measurement campaign provided data for two studies – now published as the Nature cover story – which demonstrate, however, that nocturnal thunderstorms transport the isoprene to an altitude of up to 15 kilometers. There, it reacts to form chemical compounds capable of forming vast numbers of new aerosol particles. These grow further and contribute to cloud formation as condensation nuclei. This mechanism is likely to affect the climate, too.
FRANKFURT/MAINZ/HELSINKI/LEIPZIG. Who hasn't enjoyed the aromatic scent in the air when walking through the woods on a summer's day? Partly responsible for this typical smell are terpenes, a group of substances found in tree resins and essential oils. The primary and most abundant molecule is isoprene. Plants worldwide are estimated to release 500 to 600 million tons of isoprene into the surrounding atmosphere each year, accounting for about half the total emissions of gaseous organic compounds from plants. “The Amazon rainforest alone is responsible for over a quarter of these emissions," explains atmospheric researcher Professor Joachim Curtius from 51 Frankfurt.
So far, it was thought that the isoprene in the Amazon basin degrades rapidly and does not reach higher atmospheric layers. This is because hydroxyl radicals form in the atmosphere close to the ground during the day when the sun shines. They are highly reactive and destroy the isoprene molecules within hours. “However, we have now established that this is only partly true," says Curtius. “There are still considerable amounts of isoprene in the rainforest at night, and a substantial proportion of these molecules can be transported to higher atmospheric layers."
Thunderstorms act like vacuum cleaners
Responsible for this are tropical thunderstorms that brew over the rainforest at night. They pull the isoprene up like a vacuum cleaner and transport it to an altitude of between 8 and 15 kilometers. As soon as the sun rises, hydroxyl radicals form, which react with the isoprene. But at the extremely low temperatures that prevail at these high altitudes, the rainforest molecules are transformed into compounds different from those near the ground. They bind with nitrogen oxides produced by lightning during the thunderstorm. Many of these molecules can then cluster to form aerosol particles of just a few nanometers. These particles, in turn, grow over time and then serve as condensation nuclei for water vapor – they thus play an important role in cloud formation in the tropics.
“We were able to shed light on these processes with the help of research flights that started two hours before sunrise and then continued through the day," explains Professor Jos Lelieveld. He is director at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz and also head of the CAFE-Brazil research project (Chemistry of the Atmosphere: Field Experiment in Brazil), in which an international research team was collecting data on the chemical processes in the atmosphere over the Amazon rainforest. “We were able to detect considerable amounts of isoprene in the air flowing out of the thunderstorms at high altitude, from which new aerosol particles rapidly formed after several chemical reactions."
Possible influence on the cloud formation over the ocean
Curtius and Lelieveld are not only partners in CAFE-Brazil but also involved in the CLOUD consortium, in which over 20 research groups study climate-relevant chemical processes in the atmosphere. They reproduce the conditions that prevail at this altitude in the aerosol and cloud experiment chamber at CERN in Geneva. With the help of this simulation chamber, they analyze in detail which reactions are triggered by sunlight. “In this way, we were able to determine exactly the rate at which the aerosol particles form from the isoprene products," explains atmospheric researcher Dr. Xu-Cheng He, who is in charge of the isoprene experiments. “Interestingly, it emerged that even extremely small amounts of sulfuric acid and iodine oxoacids commonly present in the atmosphere are sufficient to accelerate the formation of the aerosol particles by a factor of 100. These molecules may, therefore, jointly influence marine cloud formation – a critically uncertain process in climate projections."
Sulfuric acid forms in the atmosphere from various sulfurous substances. It can result, above all, from the reaction of sulfur dioxide with hydroxyl radicals. Within the CLOUD experiment, the Frankfurt research group was responsible for measuring the extremely low concentrations of sulfuric acid, and the Mainz team measured the hydroxy radicals.
The winds that prevail at high altitudes above the Amazon rainforest can transport the particles that form from isoprene up to thousands of kilometers away from the sources. This means they may influence cloud formation at great distances. As clouds, depending on their type and height, both shield solar radiation and prevent heat from being radiated into space, they play a crucial role in the climate. The researchers, therefore, expect that their findings will contribute to improving climate models.
It also follows from the CAFE-Brazil project results that continued deforestation of the Amazon rainforest could affect the climate in two respects. “On the one hand, greenhouse gases are released because the forest no longer stores carbon dioxide," says Curtius. “On the other hand, clearing the forest impacts both the water cycle and isoprene emissions, further propelling climate change."
Publications:
Joachim Curtius et al.: Isoprene nitrates drive new particle formation in Amazon's upper troposphere. Nature (2024), DOI:
Jiali Shen et al.: New particle formation from isoprene in the upper troposphere. Nature (2024), DOI:
Picture download:
Captions:
Aircraft: The CAFE-Brazil project's research aircraft shortly after take-off. Photo: Dirk Dienhart, MPI for Chemistry
Amazonas: The Rio Negro in the Amazon basin as seen from the research aircraft. Photo: Linda Ort, MPI for Chemistry
Cloud: Clouds over the Amazon basin, taken during a research flight. Photo: Philip Holzbeck, MPI for Chemistry
Rain: Heavy showers occur over the rainforest again and again. Photo: Philip Holzbeck, MPI for Chemistry
Scientists: The instruments and measurement data are checked on board the research aircraft by scientists Gabriela Unfer (left) and Zaneta Hamryszczak. . Photo: Philip Holzbeck, MPI for Chemistry
Background information:
CAFE-Brazil: Research in and high above the Amazon rainforest (5th Dec. 2024)
Ocean sunshade: How clouds influence climate change (Forschung Frankfurt 2.2021)
/118615101.pdf
Further information
Professor Joachim Curtius
Institute for Atmospheric and Environmental Sciences
51 Frankfurt, Germany
Tel: +49 (0)69 798-40258
curtius@iau.uni-frankfurt.de
Website: /46300616/ContentPage_46300616?
Professor Jos Lelieveld
Max Planck Institute for Chemistry, Mainz, Germany
Tel.: +49 (0)6131 3054040
jos.lelieveld@mpic.de
Dr. Xu-Cheng He
Institute for Atmospheric and Earth System Research/Physics
University of Helsinki, Finland
Tel.: +358294150284
xucheng.he@helsinki.fi
Professor Mira Pöhlker
Leibniz Institute for Tropospheric Research (TROPOS), Leipzig, Germany
Tel. +49 341 2717-7431, -7468
poehlker@tropos.de, unfer@tropos.de
Prof. Dr. Luiz Augusto Toledo Machado
Instituto de Física
Universidade de São Paulo, Brazil
lmachado@if.usp.br
Editor: Dr. Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communication Office, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt am Main, Tel: -49 (0) 69 798-12498, Fax: +49 (0) 69 798-763 12531, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de
European Research Council makes available around €5.5 million for basic research
For their visionary research projects, three top 51 researchers will receive European Research Council (ERC) funding for the next five years. Prof. Julian Garritzmann and Prof. Joel Thiago Klein will each receive an ERC Consolidator Grant – the former for his research into educational differences as a central axis of political conflicts, and the latter for his analysis of the contemporary relevance of Kant's philosophy of law. Supported with an ERC Starting Grant, molecular biologist Dr. Hannah Uckelmann is working on non-genetic (epigenetic) changes to DNA in blood cells, which play an important role in the development of leukemia.
FRANKFURT. 51 President Prof. Enrico Schleiff points to the highly diverse nature of the projects supported by the new ERC grants: “I would like to extend my heartfelt congratulations to our three ERC awardees for their pioneering projects – which also showcase our university's excellence in its wide scope and breadth: from political and social sciences to medicine. These ERC grant recipients are testimony to how relevant our basic research is to the current challenges of our time – whether with respect to investigating how education can divide our society, or why Kant's philosophy continues to shape our current discussions on intergenerational justice and the distribution of goods, or for that matter how leukemias develop even though the proteins responsible for unbridled growth are not affected by mutations."
Education is a key element of today's “knowledge societies" and has many positive social and economic consequences, including economic growth and social advancement. This is why much hope has been placed in the massive expansion of education. At the same time, however, education has the potential to politically divide our societies and a political fault line is increasingly emerging between groups with different educational backgrounds – a divide that is gradually emerging as a central axis of political conflict.
Political scientist Julian Garritzmann examines this phenomenon as part of the project “POLEDUC – The Politics of the Latent Educational Cleavage", which is now receiving around €2 million in ERC funding. The project focuses on three levels of these complex interrelationships: At the level of the individual, it uses surveys to determine the educational cleavage in political preferences and behavior, whereas at the superordinate level, it analyzes how party competition increasingly addresses different educational groups. Finally, at the macro level of policy-making, it examines why political decision-makers are increasingly responsive to better-educated citizens.
Julian Garritzmann is a professor of political science at 51 Frankfurt. His research focuses on the welfare state and education policy research, comparative political economy and political sociology. Following his university studies in Cologne and his doctorate in Konstanz, he researched and taught at Harvard University, Duke University, the University of Zurich and the European University Institute in Florence, among others. His research has been recognized with awards from the German Political Science Association, the Swiss Political Science Association and the American Political Science Association, amongst others.
Brazilian philosopher and Kant specialist Prof. Dr. Joel Thiago Klein will conduct research on Kant's philosophy of law and its current relevance at 51's Faculty of Philosophy and History. Klein's project – “LSR – LAW, STATE, REPUBLIC: An Interpretation and Defense of a Kantian Critical Reflective Constructivism" – is based on the premise that new perspectives arising from Kant's philosophy of law can make a contribution to contemporary normative challenges in political philosophy, to the philosophy of law as well as to political and legal theory. These include, for example, demands placed on the ideal of the rule of law as well as the relationship between the principles of law, history and anthropology. In addition, Klein also outlines new considerations on the legitimacy of property, economic justice and intergenerational justice, cosmopolitanism, human rights and democracy.
Klein's ERC project, which will receive some €2 million in funding, is part of the manifold research conducted on Kant at 51 Frankfurt; there are particularly noteworthy links to the work of renowned Kant researchers Prof. Dr. Marcus Willaschek and Prof. Dr. Rainer Forst.
Joel T. Klein is a professor of modern philosophy, ethics and political philosophy at the Federal University of Paraná (Brazil). He conducts research on Kant's theoretical and practical philosophy and on topics related to democracy, philosophy of law, philosophy of history and theories of justice.
After completing an undergraduate and a master's degree in philosophy at the Federal University of Santa Maria (2008), Klein obtained his doctorate at the Federal University of Santa Catarina (2012), both in Brazil. He completed his postdoc at Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München with an Alexander von Humboldt Fellowship (2018-2020), and was also a visiting scholar at 51 Frankfurt (2023).
Changes or mutations in the genetic code that lead to faulty proteins are not the sole cause of cancer. Given that they are passed on to the daughter cells during cell division, chemical changes in the DNA or the proteins around which the DNA is wound (histones) also influence the activity of genes and – in case errors occur here – can promote the development and growth of malignant cells. As part of her ERC project “EpiTransformers – Targeting epigenetic regulators during leukemia evolution", Dr. Hannah Uckelmann investigates how such epigenetic changes can turn blood stem cells into leukemia cells. Uckelmann is particularly interested in understanding how cancer cells hijack transport pathways in the cells to switch on genes that promote cancer growth. Her aim is to improve our understanding of epigenetic processes and lay the foundation for new therapeutic approaches to cancer. The ERC Starting Grant comprises around €1.5 million.
Dr. Hannah Uckelmann heads a Max Eder junior research group at Frankfurt University Hospital's Clinic for Pediatrics and Adolescent Medicine. After graduating from Heidelberg University with a master's degree in Molecular Biosciences, she completed her doctorate at the German Cancer Research Center in Heidelberg. Endowed with a postdoctoral fellowship, Uckelmann then moved to the Dana-Farber Cancer Institute in Boston and taught at Harvard Medical School. She returned to Germany in 2023 with funding from the Mildred Scheel Career Center Frankfurt. As part of the Max Eder Program, Deutsche Krebshilfe – the German Cancer Support Organization – in August 2024 started co-funding her research group, with the ERC Starting Grant funds to be made available in the course of 2025.
The European Research Council's ERC Consolidator Grant supports excellent, promising researchers whose research group is in the consolidation phase. The grant seeks to enable them to expand their own research area and conduct visionary, basic research. With a funding volume of up to €2 million for five years, the Consolidator Grant is one of the European Union's most highly endowed individual funding measures.
ERC Starting Grants support excellent researchers who want to build up their own research team in the first few years after their doctorate and establish themselves scientifically with a promising research project. The projects receive up to €1.5 million over a period of up to five years.
The European Research Council (ERC) is an institution set up by the European Commission to fund basic research.
Images for download:
Caption:
Prof. Dr. Julian Garritzmann. Photo: Anna Kluge
Prof. Dr. Joel Thiago Klein, Photo: Cibele Rowena
Dr. Hannah Uckelmann, Photo: private
Editor: Pia Barth, Science Editor, PR & Communication Office, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt, Tel. +49 (0)69 798-12481, Fax +49 (0)69 798-763-12531, p.barth@em.uni-frankfurt.de
Global study’s ranking includes the one percent of scientists cited most frequently in scientific journals
Six of the 6,600 most cited scientists in the world conduct research at 51 Frankfurt. That is the result of the current citation ranking of the “Web of Science", published by Clarivate Analytics. Each year, the ranking evaluates journal articles mainly from the natural sciences, engineering and medicine.
FRANKFURT. In most cases, it is fundamental scientific findings that result in a paper being cited frequently by other scientists. That is why citation frequency serves as an indicator of the published articles' scientific significance as well as the authors' visibility in the scientific community.
Once a year, information and technology company Clarivate Analytics evaluates its “Web of Science" citation database and publishes the “Highly Cited Researchers" ranking. The current ranking includes around 6,600 scientists, in no particular order, who belonged to the one percent of authors whose scientific articles in the natural and engineering sciences, medicine, and the categories “Economics and Business" and “Social Sciences" were cited most frequently between 2013 and 2023, either within their own category or in different subjects (“cross-field").
The ranking only takes into account journal articles and not book contributions. Further, articles with more than 30 authors or so-called group authorships in large international research consortia are also not included in the study.
Here are the “highly cited" 51 researchers of 2024:
Professor Ivan Đikić
Director of 51's Institute for Biochemistry II (Molecular Cell Biochemistry)
in the “Biology and Biochemistry" and “Molecular Biology and Genetics" categories
Professor Stefanie Dimmeler
Director of 51's Institute of Cardiovascular Regeneration / Center for Molecular Medicine / German Centre for Cardiovascular Research (Deutsches Zentrum für Herz-Kreislauf-Forschung, DZHK) / Spokeswoman of the Cardio-Pulmonary Institute (CPI) excellence cluster jointly operated by 51, Justus Liebig University Giessen and the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research
in the “cross field" category
Professor Florian Greten
Director of Georg Speyer Haus – Institute for Tumor Biology and Experimental Therapy / Professor of Tumor Biology at 51 / Spokesperson of the LOEWE Center Frankfurt Cancer Institute
in the “cross field" category
Professor Gerhard Hummer
Director of the Max Planck Institute of Biophysics / Professor at 51's Institute of Biophysics
in the “cross field" category
Professor Sibylle Loibl
51's Faculty of Medicine / German Breast Group Forschungs GmbH, Neu-Isenburg
in the “clinical medicine" category
Professor Stefan Offermanns
Director at the Max Planck Institute for Heart and Lung Research, Bad Nauheim / Professor of Pharmacology at the Center for Molecular Medicine, 51 Frankfurt
in the “cross field" category
Picture download:
Captions:
Professor Ivan Đikić, Photo credit: Uwe Dettmar for 51
Professor Stefanie Dimmeler, Photo credit: Uwe Dettmar for 51
Professor Florian Greten, Photo credit: Uwe Dettmar for 51
Professor Sibylle Loibl, Photo credit: Joppen for GBG Forschungs GmbH
Professor Gerhard Hummer, Photo credit: Shau Chun Shin for Max Planck Institute of Biophysics
Professor Stefan Offermanns, Photo credit: private
Further Information:
Twitter/X: @goetheuni @IBC2_GU, @mpi_hlr @FCI_health @GBG_Forschung @CPI_ExStra @DimmelerLab @StefanieDimmel1 @MPIbp @HummerLab
Editor: Dr. Markus Bernards, Science Editor, PR & Communications Office, Theodor-W.-Adorno-Platz 1, 60323 Frankfurt, Tel: +49 (0) 69 798-12498, bernards@em.uni-frankfurt.de