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Research in the Stage 6 group focuses on the transitions from school into the labour market, especially for students graduating from special education schools with an emphasis on learning disabilities and for students graduating from lower secondary schools (Hauptschule) and various middle school types (Realschule, Gesamt-/Gemeinschaftsschule). The group is especially interested in examining the reasons for the high levels of youth unemployment, and in finding out why it takes longer and longer for young people to find employment. 
The research questions for Stage 6 include three topics:

Public and academic discourse has repeatedly emphasized the importance of education, life-long learning and cognitive competencies for adults. However, knowledge on adult education in Germany continues to remain scarce, when compared to knowledge on education in schools, vocational educational training (VET), and in tertiary education. While investigating educational issues in an advanced life phase, we are especially interested in the following questions:

This research project concerns production processes in two areas of the creative economy, namely the visual arts and architecture. The study focuses on the socio-technical configuration of creative processes in artists’ studios and architectural offices, in other words the interaction between human and non-human actors in the drafting, design, and production of new products. In addition, it explores the varied valuation regimes and evaluation practices with which the value of a product is defined and, in particular whether and how other valuation regimes are negotiated in the various stages of the production process.

This project examines experimental forms of collaboration between actors in a sector of the creative economy, namely product design, and other economic actors like providers, consumers or retailers of goods and services. The intention is to discover whether these interactions represent newness in the form of social innovation, and if so, which material and ideational features characterize them as new. From this analysis it will then be possible to clarify the potential such collaboration represents for processes of societal transformation in systems of work and production on a wider scale.

Creativity is currently viewed as the new key resource of urban development. This is evidenced by a multitude of concepts, such as creative cities, the creative economy, and creative class, which are restructuring the current research discourse in relation to urban development and are being readily adopted by urban policy throughout the world. Creativity is, however, a volatile resource which is linked to individuals and groups. Thus the question arises for cities as to how they can manage these resources, i.e. store creativity in their structures or develop structures, within which creativity can unfold.

Our research project aims at presenting two complementary forms of progress in home care regimes in three European countries at local level: social learning (informal arrangement), and (institutional) innovation. Following the analysis of the national care framework for the aged and disabled, local case studies in Switzerland, Germany and Scotland will be selected. Case studies will both focus on aged people in need of rather “regular” care services or on complex cases – people suffering from dementia, hard to reach population requiring a wider variety of services and more intensive care provision.

The project uses debates on the prevention of chronic cardiovascular diseases to compare perceptions of social inequality in Germany and Great Britain in the 20th century. Thereby, cultural imprinting and historical development of perceptions of inequality as well as their consequences for public health policy shall be analysed. Using a cultural history perspective, an area of historical research on the welfare state which so far has attracted little attention shall be developed and a contribution be made to the history of the European welfare system.

Climate, energy, mobility and consumer policy are increasingly seen as interdependent policy fields. At least since the World Economic Forum in 2011 the “nexus” between policy fields is perceived as a central societal challenge. At the “nexus” between policy fields, actors are confronted with complex knowledge and coordination problems. For some years now, we can, however, observe new formats of joint cross-policy-field knowledge production and coordination, for instance participatory foresight procedures, interactive policy assessments, multistakeholder initiatives, and transdisciplinary platforms. These are designed to produce knowledge that is deemed both scientifically valid and politically useful in terms of coping with nexus challenges.

Quality assurance and quality development measures have been recognized as an important part of programs and projects in the field of health promotion and prevention. There is, however, little data on what measures are currently employed in the German healthcare system. A survey of the members of the National Association for Prevention and Health Promotion (BVPG) was conducted to provide the first systematic, empirically-based overview of the field. The National Association is composed of important players at the national level who are involved in the provision of health promotion and prevention services (e.g., professional associations, social welfare organizations, ministries).