On 25 September 2025, the ReDICo Centre for Digital Interculturality Studies will open at Friedrich Schiller University Jena, accompanied by the conference "Reimagining Interculturality". Find out how the BMFTR project ReDICo has succeeded in reorganising the small subject of Intercultural Communication here.
PD Dr. Luisa Conti conducts interdisciplinary research on social cohesion and investigates how the digital can both hinder and promote it. She is co-founder of the research field "Digital Interculturality".
Fergal Lenehan Luisa Conti
With the shift of communication to the internet, the small subject of intercultural communication has evolved into a new, highly topical field of research: digital interculturality examines how social media, digital platforms and algorithmically controlled public spheres shape identities and cultures.
Cultural boundaries are blurring, physical and virtual spaces are merging - which is why interculturality and digitalisation must be considered together. This is precisely where the new interdisciplinary research centre for digital and intercultural studies in Jena comes in. It is researching how digital technologies shape intercultural relationships - and what opportunities and risks are associated with them. "Digital media make cultural boundaries more permeable and create new spaces for belonging. At the same time, however, new inequalities are also emerging - through unequal access to technologies, through the associated digital skills or through the power of platforms and algorithms that control visibility," says PD Dr Luisa Conti, co-founder of the "Digital Interculturality" research field.
The pioneer for the centre in Jena is the project "ReDICo: Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively", which was funded by the BMFTR from 2020 to 2025 as part of the "Kleine Fächer - Zusammen stark" funding line. Four excellent post-docs - Luisa Conti, Fergal Lenehan, Roman Lietz and Milene Mendes de Oliveira - have investigated new contexts of interculturality in a society permeated by digitalisation, together with international partners. Their common goal: to strengthen intercultural communication as an academic subject with a positive social impact at both national and transnational level.
Apl. Prof. Fergal Lenehan researches digital Europeanism and cosmopolitanism as well as theories of digital interculturality and co-founded the research field "Digital Interculturality".
Fergal Lenehan Luisa Conti
In four sub-projects, the ReDICo team analysed intercultural practices and discourses in the digital space, as well as their influence on topics such as identities, social cohesion of groups and cultural change. In particular, digital images of Europe in Twitter debates, intercultural dynamics in virtual simulation games and the power of comment sections in online media were analysed. The results paint a differentiated picture: "Digital spaces open up new forms of cosmopolitanism, but also produce new forms of exclusion," emphasises Apl. Prof. Fergal Lenehan, co-founder of the "Digital Interculturality" research field. The research results are available in numerous publications in various media formats, mostly open-access.
The structural impact of the BMFTR project is at least as important as the research: the ReDICo Hub is a networking platform for digital interculturality. The online platform contains job offers, research funding and potential project partners, as well as information on calls for papers, conferences and workshops and a library with studies, videos, podcasts and learning resources. Last but not least, potential readers for publications can be reached via the hub.
At the same time, lecture series, international conferences, hybrid workshops and colloquia brought the scientific community together. They offered young researchers in particular the opportunity to present their own work and to network. In this way, the ReDICo team has succeeded in strengthening the small subject and at the same time bringing it to the attention of the public and science policy-makers.
The founding of the ReDICo-Centre for Digital Interculturality Studies in Jena is a direct result of this work. It is intended to permanently secure the academic structures that were previously project-based. The aim is to bring together research, teaching, the promotion of young talent and dialogue with society on a permanent basis.
This dialogue is crucial, as the issues of digital interculturality extend far beyond academic discourse. They affect educational institutions that work with culturally diverse classrooms, media companies that moderate commentaries and digital public spheres and, last but not least, political institutions that deal with migration, integration and digital participation.
The international conference "Reimagining Interculturality: Relations, Complexities and Digitality", which will take place on 25 September 2025 from 9:00 am to 5:30 pm at Friedrich Schiller University in Jena and online, will bring together experts from research and practice to rethink intercultural competence, transcultural learning and cultural complexity in the context of global and post-digital upheavals. The conference will be followed by a joint finale, which will also provide a framework for discussions on the Centre's sustainable funding and financing strategies. The conference, which is co-financed by the BMFTR, is organised by ReDICo together with the University Association for Intercultural Studies (IKS), Interculture.de e.V. and the Junior Professorship of Intercultural Practice with a Focus on Digital Cultures at Chemnitz University of Technology.
The second season of the podcast "ReDICo: The Podcast for Digital Interculturality" on the topic of "Internet Futures" will also be released on 25 September 2025. For the two co-founders, one thing is certain: "Interculturality is our everyday experience and is therefore of great social relevance. It belongs at the centre of the debate - not just in the lecture theatre, but wherever digital spaces shape our lives together".
The ReDICo Centre for Digital Interculturality Studies emerged from the ReDICo ("Researching Digital Interculturality Co-operatively") project. The joint project between the Universities of Jena, Mainz and Potsdam was funded by the Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) from November 2020 to October 2025 as part of the "Kleine Fächer - Zusammen stark" (Small subjects - strong together) funding line.
Like the project, the Centre pursues both research-related and strategic goals. It focuses on the scientific examination of intercultural practices and discourses in digital spaces and their influence on topics such as identity, social cohesion of groups and cultural change. Linked to this is the strategic goal of strengthening intercultural communication as a socially relevant academic subject at both national and transnational level, as well as further establishing and consolidating theoretical and applied research under the banner of "Digital Interculturality Studies".
