Allegory of the reconceptualization of knowledge in various fields as a consequence of the globalization of knowledge in the 17th century. Frontispiece of the Jesuit Heinrich Scherer's work on the four-fold crisis in geography. Original source owned by MPIWG Library.

Current Research Topic

The Globalization of Knowledge and its Consequences

The globalization processes of the present refer mainly to the economic processes of the globalization of markets for goods, capital and labor, whereas the global diffusion of technical innovations and bodies of knowledge is often considered a mere consequence of economic, political and cultural processes. But globalization is not just a phenomenon of the present: it may rather be understood as the result of historical processes that already encompass all the dimensions characterizing modern globalization processes, each with its own peculiar constellation of economic, political, technical, cultural and social cohesion. “The Globalization of Knowledge and its Consequences,” a research project of Department I, sets out to explain these processes in terms of historical-epistemological concepts. The first results are presented in The Globalization of Knowledge in History, a recently published volume that aims to diffuse this research in accordance with global demands for open access to scientific information. By Jürgen Renn and Helge Wendt more