Key Topics served as a nexus between research groups in different research areas. We took into account the need for intensive communication between different research groups by organizing a series of those Key Topics that fostered interaction throughout the cluster: each Key Topic was organized and led by a particular research group. This “lead project/group” was responsible for fostering exchanges between the different research areas and synthesizing the different concepts applied to one and the same historical phenomenon as seen from quite different disciplinary perspectives. Some of these themes were organized by junior research groups.
Key Topic Groups
WATER MANAGEMENT supplemented extensive work in area A with discussions of infrastructure, technology, and terminology that have arisen in areas B, C, and D …
INNOVATIONS expanded discussions concerning the history of science in area D to include the geographical and political consequences of these innovations in areas A and B …
MAPPING was to integrate discussions on maps in a wider sense, i.e. the representation of spatial or semantic entities and theirs interrelations in physical or mental diagrams, maps, and pictures …
ECONOMY fostered discussion of the archaeological sources dealt within area A as well as the role of economic ideas in the history of science in area D …
IDENTITIES studied the construction of collective identities in historical space …
TRANSFORMATION dealed with the various research groups that investigate transformations of antique phenomena and their representation through time …
