These questions and many more about the history of language, culture and media or law can nowadays be answered through digital methodologies.

Various aspects make this possible: more and more extensive portfolios of digitalized Texts and images are being made accessible; the methods of machine learning and artificial intelligence are constantly evolving and adapting; knowledge about language, literature, culture, art, law and history is being made more and more accessible through linked datasets. These widespread and interlinked datasets, hence various portfolios of Linked Open Data, are the main focus of this research. Similar to encyclopaedias, they encompass our knowledge of the world. The research collaboration “LODinG” intends to expand, refine, analyse them and utilize them to answer various queries.

The paradigm of ‘Linked Open Data’ enables us to collect knowledge in a machine-readable, standardized and linked format, to tap into it, make it openly accessible and to analyse it. People, locations or publications, but also topics, motives or artifacts are annotated with unique identifiers. Through systematically developed keywords and categories, we will be able to collect and offer extensive information about diverse objects.  The thus ensuing knowledge networks can be queried in various ways, analysed statistically, and used as a basis for visualizations as well as a resource for further applications.

Ultimately, the research collaboration will tap into and demonstrate the manifold benefits of Linked Open Data towards innovative research in various scientific questions of the humanities. At the same time, it will structurally embed Linked Open Data in a sustainable manner as a coherent research paradigm in the humanities of Trier University and uncover its expertise on a national and international level.

The profile strengthens the research foci “society, languages and cultures in transition” and “data, modelling and simulation”.
 

Therefore, if we want to understand the complexity of this transfer, we will have to observe the social, economic and cultural inter- and disconnections of our time diachronically in their historic dimension and from different angles.

How do the experiences of the past as a naval power shape the political action of countries in the present? Which strategies do naval powers or maritime trade powers pursue to reach their military-strategic as well as infrastructural or trade objectives, even against the will of rival powers? In what way do routes and schedules of maritime transport influence the costs of the trade in goods and therefore the economic development of transregional or international transactions? 

The research group “Maritime Transfers” addresses a key subject of the currently thriving and historically ramified area of the maritime history, that is also called ‘Blue History’. Contrary to Anglo-American projects, the collaborative research project situated in Trier pursues a unique method of double perspectives: On the one hand it conveys the systematic research of the transfer of people, goods and ideas, that would not be possible without a maritime route. On the other hand, it focusses on abstract transfer mechanisms that get triggered when maritime knowledge is being shared; for example, when maritime routes are reassessed on the basis of nautical calculations, or when undersea cable networks are being surveyed about dynamics in security policy to secure the international data traffic.

The research builds on five core topics: 1) Science and skill sets in maritime cultures from ancient to modern times, 2) Globalization of the Hellenic-Roman world due to the antique Suez Canal and the connection between the Indian Ocean and the Mediterranean Sea, 3) maritime routes and their influence on maritime trade in the context of nautical simulations, 4) the invention and enactment of maritime history through new and old naval powers, and 5) maritime research in the modern age as an impetus to analyse and explain weather phenomena.

The profile strengthens the research foci “society, languages and cultures in transition” and “data, modelling and simulation”.
 

Amidst the progressing climate change and in line with significant global developments like the increasingly aging population, urbanization and migration, we are not just measuring the wellbeing of society against its economic income anymore. We instead observe that other aspects, e. g. ecologic elements like biodiversity as well as energy and water provision, gain in relevance over traditional economic factors. At the same time, economic and ecological developments as well as shifts in demography share complex interdependencies.

The research group consists of researchers in the fields of economic and social statistics, mathematics, economics, as well as spatial and environmental sciences, that develop solutions to ensure sustainable relationships between the environment and humanity via modern microsimulations. For this political highly relevant and scientifically challenging key issue for the future, we predict society’s total and regional processes as well as municipal processes through mathematical and statistical methods and provide therefore support for decision making in various political areas. The group focuses on subjects like “Resilient Drinking Water Industry” and “Urban Biodiversity and Sustainability”. Simultaneously, we are refining methods of microsimulation through the integration of eco-scientific and geostatistical modelling.

The collaborative research group strengthens Trier University’s profile research foci “data, modelling and simulation” and “Human-Environment Interactions”.

Money laundering has a reputation for entailing significant negative economic implications. But how detrimental for the German economy is money laundering really? Evidence based data is lacking in this aspect. The Financial Action Task Force (FATF), an international body that sets standards for the fight against money laundering, criticized exactly that in its evaluation of Germany’s anti-money laundering measures. We attempt to close this data gap through this research cooperation project. Via an economic analysis, this project aims to approximate the overall balance of the economic consequences of money laundering for the economic and financial system.

The German real estate sector is considered to be particularly susceptible to money laundering. As a first step, we therefore have to assess the economic consequences of money laundering in this sector. In subsequent projects, we intend to expand the method to other sectors and to amalgamate the findings into an overall balance. This economic analysis aims to facilitate a more risk-oriented coordination of government interventions by employing them exactly where the highest risk has been identified.

The group project offers an important contribution to the continued development of Trier University’s research profile at the intersection of the research foci “society, languages and cultures in transition” and “data, modelling and simulation”. Through the subject of money laundering the project aims towards an analysis of an area of crime that is of paramount societal importance. It is assumed that a non-negligible part of the price increases to be observed on the real estate market can be traced back to money laundering activities. The fact that criminals can enjoy the fruit of their labour defies the postulate of justice and threatens social cohesion. The project employs familiar and new econometric models. The interdisciplinary approach of this research is unparalleled so far in the German penal law, even though there is a significant need to further conduct economic analyses in the areas of economic, financial and criminal tax law. The research group can contribute to the closing of evident gaps within an interdisciplinary research field.
 

While other countries opt to follow either the ideal of a controlled society (China) or of a laissez faire approach (USA) when it comes to digital transformation, the European Union aspires to preserve and foster economic prosperity and central values like democracy and rule of law in the digital age by relying on the fundamental rights in their approach. To this end, the EU currently passes extensive legislative packages to:

• guarantee a secure and trustworthy online environment and to fight malicious content in online platforms (Digital Services Act),
• establish fair competition between big digital corporations (Digital Markets Act)
• make the potential of artificial intelligence accessible and limit its risk factors (AI Act draft), as well as to
• tap into the data wealth contained in the public and economic sector (Data Governance Act; Data Act draft).

DigitS EU aims to accompany the creation of an independent European digital order, and to support its concomitant efforts to assert itself with international digital corporation and competing legal systems, in an interdisciplinary and scientific manner. Values based on the fundamental rights and standards to protect market freedom, social responsibility and pluralistic shaping of opinions serve as a framework.

The reactions and implications of the law on the changes to all areas of life brought about by digitalisation and its developments (datafication, platformisation, algorithmisation) are at the core of DigitS EU. To assess the impacts of the regulation of the digital law on the regulated areas, research subsection II conducts an empirical study on the formation of opinions online. The study is based on simulations and modelling. Subsections I and III focus on the implications on law, politics and the economy and conduct a normative, theoretical and empirical analysis of this development.

The project develops the profile research focus “data, modelling and simulation”, which further encompasses the transformation of law through digitalisation, as well as information as a key resource. Furthermore, it carries over to the profile research fucus “society, languages and cultures in transition”.

Additionally, the project is contributing to the digital strategy of the Rhineland-Palatinate. Said strategy aims to effectively shape central framework conditions in the interest of the people, like the transformation of the economy and labour through digitalisation. To this end we want our concepts to contribute to the shaping of the digitalisation of law, politics and economy that is oriented towards its possible implications and the fundamental rights.
 

AI has the capacity to provide comprehensible information, to communicate in different languages and to guide from one consultation to another. Yet it can also be persuasive when generating flaws (“hallucinating”), overlooking crises, foster prejudice, or exposing sensitive data to danger. Because AI can sound empathic, it is often used as a substitute for psychotherapy. This is where the consortium sets its focus: we elucidate the benefits, the limitations and the “secondary effects” of AI for mental health and develop responsible tools. Security and compliance with the rules are part of the enquiry from the very beginning on: test certificates and guidelines for data protection, fairness, explainability and responsibility will be created. 

The project is centred around AI-based applications in the context of psychotherapy and with regard to the psychological/psychotherapeutic training: e.g. “blended care” (a combination of personal treatment and digital elements), practicing clinical competence in application, therapy planning, evaluation of therapy progress, documentation, and reliable synthesis of knowledge from studies and guidelines. Another focus lies on AI simulations of therapy conversations that could be used for instance in research and training. 

The following institutes are engaged in the interdisciplinary consortium at Trier University: Psychotherapeutic Outpatient Clinic, informatics/business informatics (among others the branch office of the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence, DFKI), nursing science, law (Institute for Digital Law Trier, IRDT), philosophy/ethics (Trier Institute for Applied Ethics, TRIANE), and teaching and learning research.

The project strengthens three transversal dimensions of Trier University: transformation, resilience and diversity. In particular, it creates impulses for bridge themes and research areas ‘Complexity, uncertainty, modelling’, ‘Health promotion’ and ‘Human oriented Artificial Intelligence’.

 

Human behaviour is never constant – it changes from one moment, one hour and one day to another. These oscillations concern our bodily functions, the activity of our brain, our thoughts and feelings. This variability was considered for a long time as unwanted noise that should be reduced or controlled as much as possible in scientific scrutiny. New research results suggest however that these oscillations as such can provide important information – for example about how people adapt to new challenges, learn and develop themselves.  

The interdisciplinary research consortium “Beyond Noise” analyses oscillations in experience and behaviour from multiple scientific perspectives. Psychology, philosophy, neurosciences, informatics and nursing science cooperate in order to answer three questions. The main focus lies on the question how oscillations in thinking, acting and feeling are related to shifts of brain activity and influenced by environmental factors. Besides, we explore the functional meaning of variability. On the one hand, we study in which situations variability can display negative consequences and how these can be reduced. On the other hand, variability can fulfil an important adaptive function. We test the hypothesis that oscillations in thinking, acting and feeling allow people to detect important information about their environment, to react flexibly to new challenges and thus extend their competencies.

Exploring variability and its role for adaptability opens new prospects to predict better learning, development and health and to promote them in a targeted manner. At the same time, the investigation provides important impulses for designing our environment in a way that fosters favourable oscillations and diminishes unfavourable ones. By doing so, the research consortium “Beyond Noise” contributes to a better understanding of individual and societal transformation processes. It supports resilience and transformation as transversal dimensions of Trier University and creates references to several bridge topics including cognition, behaviour, environment and uncertainty. By applying innovative technologies and methods and due to close interdisciplinary collaboration, the consortium makes also an important contribution to the transversal dimensions digitality and diversity and to bridge topics variation, modelling and knowledge.

The consortium approaches these questions from an interdisciplinary perspective. We explore the value of nature and nature protection in the society from legal, economic, ecological and philosophical angles. We ask how new and perhaps diverging concepts of nature can be turned into legal regulations. Despite various ideas of how nature can be attributed an economic value, clear rules for accountability and prices that mirror the increasing deterioration of nature and biodiversity are still missing. Likewise, effective legal instruments to define responsibilities for large-scale destruction of the environment are lacking. New European regulations for nature conservation fall short of clarity. 

We bundle the expertise in human-environment-relations at Trier University to develop innovative solutions for one of the most urgent questions of our time. Our project contributes to sharpen the university’s profile in the transversal dimensions transformation, resilience and diversity, as the preservation of biodiversity is part of the humans’ and societal responsibility. The disruptive change requires an increased resilience of ecosystems.

Narratives disseminate via digital platforms that have become arenas of societal and political debates. The research consortium – uniting American studies, computational linguistics, media studies, political science, psychology and sinology – explores how to improve the detection of narratives and the analysis of their dissemination in contested public spheres. Which patterns do contested narratives feature? How is their effective potential to be assessed? By enquiring into these questions, the research group contributes to enhance the society’s resilience. The project will allow insights into patterns of narratives that circulate in digital public spheres. Its findings will furthermore elucidate which narratives prevail in the communication via platforms like X or TikTok on the one side and in conventional media on the other side. 

The consortium applies an integrated approach in order to explore narratives: we compare system contexts (EU, USA and China), media and platform channels (e.g. social media and television formats), and source types (speakers from journalism, politics, science). Progress made by AI in the automated data collection and detection allows, combined with manual analysis, for a more comprehensive study of communication than ever before. We compare systematically themes, communication strategies and techniques. Case studies will explore the perception of narratives identified as particularly relevant. The functioning and the effects of narratives (e.g. on people’s trust into socio-political institutions) can thus be analysed from a psychological perspective and shall build a basis for policy recommendations.  
The project strengthens the university’s profile in the transversal dimensions digitality, resilience and transformation. Moreover, it interconnects the overarching topics or research foci.