About us

The COE ‘EurAsian Transformations’ aims to establish a research and training infrastructure for studying the rich resources of the past created in 3000 years of Eurasian history, and to meet the challenges involved in understanding this history in all its diversity. It addresses ‘Eurasia’ as a historically and discursively constituted category for framing political, social and cultural developments that unfolded across the vast Eurasian landmass. Its main goals are:

1. Pooling and developing competences on the basis of existing strengths in Austrian research on many regions in Eurasia, which is increasingly integrated in the evolving matrix of a new global perspective that moves beyond Eurocentrism and Orientalism. Building on these networks, the COE seeks to attract excellent researchers, train future generations of Austrian scholars, provide new opportunities for scholars in target countries, improve dissemination to a wider public, and build resilient networks with Asian and eastern European partner institutions.

2. Establishing structures for collaboration across disciplines and institutions, integrating existing and newly-acquired competences to enable research that transcends the boundaries of regionally defined disciplines. The COE seeks to provide a shared frame for the training of new generations of researchers in disciplinary and interdisciplinary skills, capable of addressing contemporary issues.

3. Advancing knowledge and contributing to a new global understanding of Eurasia’s manifold transformations in past and present. The written heritage of Eurasia, in the focus of this COE, constitutes a truly outstanding ‘resource of the past’ and offers unique opportunities for a deeper understanding of one of the fundamental elements of the human condition: our diversity. The COE proposes a thorough cross-reading of sources of wide-ranging provenance while questioning established interpretive paradigms and grand narratives.

4. Responding to present challenges by addressing overarching research questions of great contemporary relevance. Understanding geopolitical challenges and shifts in the balance of world politics, the rise of nationalist and fundamentalist ideologies, economic and cultural conflicts or the impact of climate change requires in-depth knowledge of the area and its history, and an overarching point of view beyond disciplines and national research traditions.

5. The big issues to be addressed from a comparative perspective include ‘cultural and linguistic diversity’, ‘constructions of identity and difference’, ‘mobility and migrations’, ‘imperial dynamics and their limits’ and ‘ecological and economic transformations’. The COE seeks to offer a deeper understanding of today’s problems and their historical background, and provide critical orientation at a time in which growing interdependency increasingly links Europe with the huge continental areas to the east.