EU (Kommission der Europäischen Gemeinschaften)
The subject of the project focuses on the interaction between different European cultures, especially among EU-member states and the accession-candidates, in the process of EU enlargement and enhanced political, social and economic relations.
The European Union of the future will be a union of people with a vastly increasing variety of cultural-backgrounds, identities, traditions and values. Interaction between different cultures and value-systems might sometimes cause difficulties because of a lack of intercultural knowledge and awareness of the special features of other cultures. Moreover, Europe has to exploit its resources better which come from its cultural diversity. Intercultural training of European students and researchers of economics, management and political sciences is regarded to be crucial to enhance competitiveness of European corporations, firms and institutions.
The field of research is Intercultural Knowledge (IK) and Intercultural Knowledge Management (IKM). The socio-economic reason for the project is to improve transfer of intercultural knowledge and Intercultural knowledge management within firms and corporations, which act on a European or even global level. It is the scientific reason and aim of the multi-disciplinary team of scholars to deepen and widen our knowledge about the core issues in an increasing variety of cultural interaction, in order to develop new tools and concepts for training and education focus, especially the fields of politics and business), to establish a common European concept of IKM, which can help people to understand that intercultural knowledge and intercultural knowledge management are important resources which enhance global competiveness of Europe.