University of Mannheim Part of EU-Funded Doctoral Network for the First Time

Vier Personen sitzen in einem Seminarraum

A total of ten European universities have formed the “MultiLAwa – Multilingual Language Awareness in the European Digital Society” network. It is funded with EUR 4.35 million under the EU’s “Marie Skłodowska-Curie Actions” program.

Given the increasing linguistic diversity in society, academia, business, and politics, the project aims to investigate the extent to which language awareness can serve as a competency for navigating digital transformation in Europe and how digital progress can promote language awareness and multilingualism. The project will focus on both empirical assessments and the creation of innovative digital resources and guidelines to promote language(s) awareness and, thereby, multilingualism.

The distinctive feature of the doctoral networks funded by the European Commission is that they exclusively support international doctoral programs which, in addition to a stay at two universities and supervision by two professors, also include a placement at a non-university partner. This form of doctoral program is referred to as a Joint Doctorate or Cotutelle program.

The MultiLAwa network funds 14 such doctoral positions, which are based at a total of ten European universities and involve 16 associated partners. The network is led by the Université de Lorraine in Nancy. Other participating universities include Innsbruck, Vienna, Copenhagen, Milan, Warsaw, Lisbon (Nova), Zurich, as well as Erlangen-Nuremberg and Mannheim. The official start date for MultiLAwa is 1 September 2026. The total duration is 48 months. The call for applications for the doctoral positions will be out in May 2026; the positions are scheduled to begin on 1 November 2026. The total funding for the project is approximately EUR 4.35 million, of which about EUR 580,000 will go to the University of Mannheim.

The University of Mannheim is involved in the network in several ways: A total of five doctoral positions will be offered in cooperation with Milan, Zurich, Copenhagen (two), and Nancy. On the Mannheim side, they will be supervised by Prof. Dr. Florence Oloff from the German Studies Department and the Leibniz Institute for the German Language (IDS) in Mannheim, Prof. Dr. Johannes Müller-Lancé from the Department of Romance Languages, and Prof. Dr. Henning Lobin from the German Studies Department and the IDS. The IDS is also an associated partner of the network.

Further information is available on the MultiLAwa website.

Back