New Leiden interdisciplinary programme: Global Transformations and Governance Challenges
Global problems such as pandemics, migration, financial crises and climate change call for global governance. That may sound obvious. ‘But we often underestimate the global nature of current challenges in society,’ says Jan Aart Scholte, brand-new Professor of Global Transformations and Governance Challenges at Leiden University.
‘More often than not, public discussion of, say, coronavirus or migration policy, focuses on measures within the Netherlands or Europe. The notion of a global strategy takes a back seat.’
The new Leiden interdisciplinary programme Global Transformations and Governance Challenges (GTGC) approaches changes in contemporary society from a global perspective. This requires interdisciplinary research: collaboration between relevant researchers from different university faculties. Over the next years, Scholte seeks to coordinate more interfaculty research ‘with a global lens’ at Leiden University. ‘Leiden has enormous potential in this field, but there is scope for further development of global thinking.’ A good start has been made: 180 researchers from Leiden have affiliated with the GTGC programme and ten seed-grant projects are already underway.