On February 16, 2024, Minister of Science and Health, Clemens Hoch, alongside President of RPTU Prof. Dr. Arnd Poetzsch-Heffer, and President Prof. Dr. Gabriele E. Schaumann, signed the target agreement for the new Rhineland-Palatinate research initiative. This includes the potential area SCOPE - Societal COmmunication in times of PErmacrisis, headed by Prof. Dr. Michaela Maier (IKM) and Prof. Dr. Paul Lukowicz (DFKI).

The potential area SCOPE is investigating how social communication on long-term crisis issues takes place and what influence this has on social coexistence. This investigation is undertaken through various sub-projects focusing on the communication behavior of political actors and the information behavior of citizens, along with its social effects such as polarization or loss of trust, particularly around issues such as the climate crisis and migration. The project is truly interdisciplinary, featuring scientists from communication and political science, psychology, sociology, environmental science, and computer science. In addition to the scientific gain, the interdisciplinary cooperation also serves to raise the profile of RPTU by building up expertise in the field of Computational Social Science (CSS).

Further information on the research focus can be found here.

We are excited to commence work in the potential area and to uncover valuable insights into the topic of communication in times of crisis as well as advancing expertise in the field of Computational Social Science at the Landau campus!