GRK 2222:  Critical infrastructures: Social construction, function failure and protection in urban spaces

• Subject Area: History ; Construction Engineering and Architecture
• Term: since 2016
• Website: Homepage
• Project identifier: Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) - Project number 281328414

TThe Research Training Group 2222 KRITIS investigates networked technical infrastructures in cities. It focuses on the construction, function crises and protection of those critical infrastructures in their spatial and temporal contexts and relationality. First, we explore the construction of technical infrastructures as "critical" in their historical genesis and spatial differentiation. Second, we describe and explain function crises of urban infrastructures including the conditions of their vulnerability or resilience. Thirdly, we ask how the relevant protection strategies are or can be organized according to the principles of preparedness and prevention. In the second funding phase, the group focuses on dynamics as a key characteristic of critical infrastructures. These dynamics are captured through the lenses of transformation, circulation and system of systems. These three aspects refer to the changeability of systems (transformation), to movement as the central function of infrastructures (circulation), and finally to the interdependencies between systems or subsystems as a condition of change and movement (system of systems). The Research Training Group works through interdisciplinary collaboration between researchers from twelve fields of the humanities, social sciences and engineering, with a leading role for the humanities and social sciences, conduct research here. The interdisciplinary work is structured not only by the common research object infrastructure but also by common approaches and assumptions about the characteristics of dynamics. The qualification programme contains different formats which aim at interdisciplinary exchange, academic supervision of the individual work, international visibility and autonomy of the graduates. It includes advanced seminars and colloquia, methodological training, a practice partner concept, guest lecturers and Mercator Fellows, training courses on key qualifications, conferences and joint forums for the graduates (e.g. working paper). A degressive time load of the doctoral candidates to spend on joint events will increasingly guarantee time for the writing of the dis

• DFG Programme: Research Training Groups
• Applicant Institution: Technische Universität Darmstadt
• Spokesperson: Professor Dr. Jens Ivo Engels
• Participating Researchers: Professorin Dr. Sybille Frank; Professorin Dr. Iryna Gurevych; Professorin Dr. Martina Heßler; Professorin Dr. Michèle Knodt; Professor Dr.-Ing. Jochen Monstadt; Professor Dr. Alfred Nordmann; Professor Dr.-Ing. Andreas Oetting; Professorin Dr.-Ing. Annette Rudolph-Cleff; Professor Dr.-Ing. Uwe Rüppel; Professor Dr. Gerrit Jasper Schenk; Professor Dr. Florian Steinke