31 Mar 2025

Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past” receives four more years of funding

The Senate of the Leibniz Association has decided to fund the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past” for a further four years until September 2029. The Research Alliance is coordinated by the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF). In addition to core funding, the Alliance will receive 1.2 million euros for research and knowledge transfer. This decision is an important recognition of the Alliance’s successful research and the strategic importance of the Leibniz Association’s research alliances.

Founded in 2021, the Research Alliance investigates the value of the past for past and present societies. This includes current discussions on colonial art, reinterpretations of National Socialism, or historically legitimized wars.

The Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past” brings together 21 Leibniz institutes and cooperates with many international partners. Through its fellowship programs, it also involves international scholars in its work. Different disciplines—from the humanities and social sciences to the life sciences—come together to develop innovative research projects from an interdisciplinary perspective.

In its new funding phase, the Alliance explores the value of the past in the context of current debates on climate change and biodiversity, the postcolonial responsibilities of the Western world, and the instrumentalization of the past by resurgent right-wing populism and radicalism. Here, the Research Alliance addresses very practical issues: “From September 2025, seven research groups will explore the importance of concepts of time and space for the understanding of history and discuss the formation of documentary evidence, for example in the field of digital history. We want to develop new forms of participation and appropriation of history in museums, memorial sites, and other spaces of public history, and introduce them to society,” says Dr. Achim Saupe, project leader and coordinator of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past.”

Professor Frank Bösch, director of the Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam, welcomed the continued funding: “The Alliance strengthens the interdisciplinary research of the historically oriented disciplines and will further develop the cooperation with international partners.”

In its statement, the Leibniz Association’s Senate Strategic Committee (SAS) praised that the Alliance has achieved the main goals of its first funding phase in “a remarkable way.” This includes the establishment of an interdisciplinary working structure as well as the heuristic and conceptual clarification of basic principles. The Committee states that the Alliance has successfully developed an international and publicly visible research network and established a new field of research with a highly topical and relevant subject. According to the SAS, “the Alliance takes a compelling interdisciplinary approach to a subject that is central to the humanities and cultural studies and for which there is no international equivalent of this scale and standard.”

The first funding phase brought forth numerous publications by different publishers, including, most prominently, the series “Value of the Past” by Wallenstein. These works are regularly reviewed in the feature pages of major daily newspapers. Outstanding publications include the handbook Historische Authentizität (Historical Authenticity) as well as studies on the toppling of monuments throughout contemporary history and on the issue of musealization and how it generates cultural values. Most recently, Unsterbliche Werte. Über Historizität und Historisierung (Immortal Values. On Historicity and Historicization) by Henning Trüper received wide attention (Frankfurter Allgemeine Zeitung, 7 Mar 2025). Furthermore, the Alliance organized an online exhibition on the loss of historic building heritage in Ukraine as a result of the Russian war of aggression. In its blog “Value of the Past,” the Alliance regularly offers insights into its research activities.

Professor Martin Sabrow, speaker of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past,” emphasizes that the value of the past for the present becomes particularly evident in the severe upheavals that characterize our present. “Today, there can be no discussion of the future without referring to the past. The Alliance’s task is to render this importance visible and clarify its role for both the actions of its actors and for the thinking of society,” says Martin Sabrow.

In its second funding phase, the steering committee of the Leibniz Research Alliance consists of Prof. Martin Sabrow (ZZF) as speaker, Prof. Arnold Bartetzky (GWZO), PD Barbara Picht (ZfL), and Prof. Ruth Schilling (DSM) as deputy speakers as well as Dr. Achim Saupe (ZZF) as coordinator.

Further information

https://www.leibniz-wert-der-vergangenheit.de/en/ – website of the Alliance featuring results and the participating institutes

https://valuepast.hypotheses.org/ – the Alliance’s blog (in German)

You can also follow the Alliance on Bluesky Social: @valuepast.bsky.social.

The participating institutes of the Leibniz Research Alliance “Value of the Past”

  • Leibniz Centre for Contemporary History Potsdam (ZZF)
  • Deutsches Bergbau-Museum Bochum – Leibniz Research Museum for Geo-resources (DBM)
  • Deutsches Museum (DM)
  • German Maritime Museum – Leibniz Institute for Maritime History (DSM)
  • Leibniz Institute for Educational Media |Georg Eckert Institute (GEI)
  • Germanisches Nationalmuseum – Leibniz-Forschungsmuseum für Kulturgeschichte (GNM)
  • Herder Institute for Historical Research on East Central Europe (HI)
  • Leibniz Institute for Contemporary History Munich-Berlin (IfZ)
  • Leibniz Institute for the German Language (IDS)
  • Leibniz Institute for European History Mainz (IEG)
  • Peace Research Institute Frankfurt (PRIF)
  • Leibniz Institute for the History and Culture of Eastern Europe (GWZO)
  • Leibniz Institute for Jewish History and Culture – Simon Dubnow (DI)
  • Leibniz Institute for Media Research │Hans-Bredow-Institut (HBI)
  • Leibniz Institute for Research on Society and Space (IRS)
  • Leibniz-Institut für Wissensmedien (IWM)
  • Leibniz Institute for the Analysis of Biodiversity Change (LIB) Leibniz-Zentrum für Archäologie (LEIZA)
  • Leibniz Center for Literary and Cultural Research (ZfL)
  • Leibniz-Zentrum Moderner Orient (ZMO)
  • Senckenberg – Leibniz Institution for Biodiversity and Earth System Research (SGN)

Scientific contact person

Dr. Achim Saupe, saupe@zzf-potsdam.de