Further research projects

In addition to the long-term projects of the National Academies Program, the Heidelberg Academy of Sciences and Humanities HAdW) is home to numerous research initiatives. This overview presents the broad spectrum of our externally funded projects, state-level initiatives, and academic collaborations.

The scope of research ranges from the cataloging of historical text corpora and the preservation of global cultural heritage to studies at the intersection of the humanities, natural sciences, and cultural studies.

WIN-Kolleg

Complexity Reduction, Explainability, and Interpretability (KEI)

Machine learning (ML) algorithms make predictions that are relevant to our daily lives, but why they make certain decisions rather than others often remains difficult to understand; in a sense, they are “opaque.” In our project, we aim to understand how this opacity arises and how it might be addressed retroactively.

WIN-Kolleg

In the Age of Multiple Crises

How complex crises arise and how we can address them

Multiple crises have the potential to cause the collapse of social and political systems. This interdisciplinary project aims to examine the tension between complex crises and the need for sociopolitical measures to reduce this complexity.

WIN-Kolleg

Neutral by Choice

Cognitive Neuroscience Meets the Philosophy of Mind

Neutral mental states are systematically underrepresented in contemporary philosophical theories and cognitive neuroscience. This project is an attempt to restore that lost complexity and to arrive at a more naturalistic understanding of decision-making, one that allows for the possibility of being decidedly undecided.

cultural studies

The Role of Culture in Early Human Expansion (ROCEEH)

The aim of the research center is to reconstruct the spatio-temporal migratory movements of hominids between 3 million and 20,000 years ago.

dictionary

Global Basic Lexicon (GloBasLex)

Das Projekt Global Basic Lexicon (GloBasLex) erfasst und dokumentiert Grundwortschätze der Sprachen der Welt auf der Grundlage publizierter Wörterbücher. Ziel ist der Aufbau einer frei zugänglichen Datenbank paralleler Wortlisten für 1.000 Grundkonzepte, die nahezu alle hinreichend dokumentierten Sprachen weltweit abdeckt. Mit rund 1.500 Sprachen von allen Kontinenten entsteht eine der umfassendsten Ressourcen dieser Art.

third-party funded project

Buddhist stone inscriptions for CBETA

Das Projekt ermöglicht die Vernetzung der an der Forschungsstelle Buddhistische Steinschriften in China erarbeiteten digitalen Daten mit CBETA, einer Initiative, die den in chinesischer Sprache überlieferten buddhistischen Kanon digitalisiert und nach wissenschaftlichen Standards zugänglich macht.

third-party funded project

Nepal Heritage Documentation Project (NHDP)

In cooperation with the Heidelberg Centre for Transcultural Studies (HCTS), endangered cultural assets in Nepal are being documented, recorded, and made accessible online.

third-party funded project

Editing tools for digital epigraphy (EDEp)

The DFG-funded project is developing an open-access publication platform for editions of inscriptions and research data in the field of ancient epigraphy.