The programme addresses transdisciplinary teams of researchers from the humanities, cultural or social sciences and partners outside of academia who jointly work on different ideas and issues relating to democracy in transition. Questions about the funding programme? Visit one of our online consultation hours. Deadline: 9 September 2025

The growing influence of anti-pluralist parties is often accompanied by a decline in academic freedom in the respective country. This is one of the findings of the latest Academic Freedom Index (AFI). It covers 179 countries worldwide.

Rhetoric expert Anika Kaiser researches how people can make themselves heard on the major issues of our time – artificial intelligence (AI) being a case in point. She is the right person to take care that this grassroots democratic process does not remain too detached from reality: in her first life, she trained as a painter.

The foundation has brought together researchers from the humanities, cultural studies, and social sciences, as well as practitioners from outside academia, to develop new ideas and solutions for making democracies more resilient.

5 countries, 10 cities, over 100 initiatives – in a large-scale research project, social scientist Helge Schwiertz is investigating how citizens are working together at local levels to find solutions to the major crises facing Europe.

The European idea is noticeably crumbling. Researchers funded by the Volkswagen Foundation met at the status symposium 'Challenges and potentials for Europe' to exchange views on the results of their research on the topic.  One conclusion: fortunately, joint European research on Europe is not crumbling!