Research Training Group "Transnational Social Support" receives EUR 2.8 million in support for the next four and a half years

Young researchers look at the provision of social support across national borders

21.11.2012

The work of the Research Training Group 1474: Transnational Social Support at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) will be continued thanks to the provision of an additional EUR 2.8 million of financial support by the German Research Foundation (DFG). The group investigates transnational social support processes in collaboration with the University of Hildesheim. "Over the past four years, the DFG Re-search Training Group has developed into a very productive and effective organization with the regard to the promotion of young researchers. It has succeeded in establishing and integrating the subject of Transnational Social Support within the international academic community. The German Research Foundation has recognized this by providing supplemental funding for another four and a half years," said Professor Dr. Cornelia Schweppe, coordinator of the DFG Research Training Group since 2008.

This means that up until 2017, 12 doctoral candidates and two postdoctoral researchers will continue to have the opportunity to analyze how social support is provided across national borders. One aspect the young researchers focus on is how care and assistance networks are organized across national boundaries.

Over the past four years, the DFG Research Training Group 1474 has developed into an internationally linked research association with an interdisciplinary approach. "We want to build on this over the next four and a half years and transform the currently temporary research training group into permanent structures," explained Schweppe. "We have already reached important milestones in this regard with the establishment of an international research cluster, in which universities from Canada, Australia, Taiwan, and the USA are now studying aspects of Transnational Social Support, and with the creation of the journal Transnational Social Review.