The Institute for World Society Studies at Bielefeld University´s Faculty of Sociology is an independent research centre seeking to contribute to the understanding of the formation and development of world society.

The Institute encourages research on a wide range of themes in global and transnational studies as well as in more traditional fields of international relations, focusing particularly on theories of world society. Among our present research themes are global social policy; human rights; the role of organizations in world society and its representation by means of statistics and other media.

The Institute sponsors research by
- providing a home base for both individual as well as externally-funded research projects (for further informations please contact the coordination office),
- incorporating a doctoral Research Training Group,
- organizing conferences and workshops, and
- organizing a regular lecture series.

The Institute was founded in 2000. It is currently headed by Mathias Albert (Political Science), Ulrike Davy (Law), Bettina Heintz (Sociology) and Lutz Leisering (Sociology) and encompasses about 70 members.

To gain an overview of our publications and research you may download our working reports
working report 2000-2008
working report 2009-2011