Passionately Engaging with Challenging Research Questions: »GRAMA« Research Training Group Reflects on Six Years of Success
On 31 March, the six-year project period of the DFG-funded Media Anthropology research training group (GRAMA) at the Bauhaus-Universität Weimar’s Faculty of Media came to an end. Last Friday, members of the research training group gathered to celebrate an emotional farewell together with representatives from the University at the site of the former tram depot (Lichthaus Kino).
In April 2020, 24 doctoral candidates, 13 associate doctoral candidates, 5 post docs, and 6 associate post docs began working together as the Media Anthropology research training group. The group was supported by a team of renowned professors and fellows. The project received about 5.7 million euros in funding from the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG, German Research Foundation).
As part of the farewell ceremony on 27 March 2026, University President Prof. Peter Benz and Prof. Jan Oliver Ringert, Dean of the Faculty of Media, paid tribute to GRAMA’s important work, which is by no means over and will continue to have a lasting impact in Weimar and beyond. Spokesperson Dr. Christiane Voss highlighted the group’s lively and creative spirit in her speech. The questions raised by the challenging research approach of media anthropology have led to passionate debate. »Debating fundamental perspectives without simply breaking off the discourse […] isn’t just an academic principle – it’s also a decidedly democratic core value,« said Voss. For this reason, every culture needs a humanities-based toolkit.
The research training group was committed to media studies research into the diverse ways in which people and media are existentially intertwined. In their doctoral theses, the researchers examined these anthromedia relationships across a broad range of research topics, including augmented reality, digital fashion, film eroticism, and quantum imaging. As a structured doctoral programme, the research group has significantly contributed to training a new generation of distinguished, well-connected media academic in a highly innovative field of research.
Over the past six years, the research group has organised an extensive programme of academic events, such as international conferences and workshops, and film and lecture series featuring prominent visiting academics. A partnership was established in 2025 with Johns Hopkins University in Baltimore. This partnership will continue as annual collaborative summer labs, which will increase international collaboration in the field of media studies.
Background:
Research training groups are time-limited university programmes designed to support early-career researchers. They provide doctoral candidates with the opportunity to carry out their thesis as part of a structured research programme. Research training groups excel in terms of high academic quality and originality and carry out their work on an international level. They are funded in Germany by the Deutschen Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG), the largest independent research funding body for science in Germany.
Contact:
Tina Meinhardt
Press and Public Relations Officer for the Faculty of Media
Bauhausstraße 11
99423 Weimar
E-mail: tina.meinhardt[at]uni-weimar.de
Phone: +49 (0) 36 43 / 58 37 65
