Science is growing: Hartmut Rosa new to the Saxon Academy!

Science is growing: Hartmut Rosa new to the Saxon Academy!

As part of its public spring meeting in 2025, the Saxon Academy of Sciences in Leipzig admitted eight new members. Among these is also Prof. Dr. Hartmut Rosa, director of the Max Weber College at the University of Erfurt. The academy, founded in 1846, has made it its mission to pursue Leibniz's idea of ​​combining theory with practice. Over 200 scientists from various disciplines meet here to regularly exchange methods and research results.

Rosa, who was accepted into the academy as a member of the philological-historical class, plans to contribute his research on social energy and its origins. In recent years he has worked intensively on modernization processes, which he describes as ways to “literally set the world in motion.” These concepts are central themes in his previous work and are reflected in his book “Acceleration: The Change in Time Structures in Modernity”.

Social energy and its effects

Hartmut Rosa is professor of general and theoretical sociology at the Friedrich Schiller University in Jena. In the course of his research, he asks the question of what drives political operations and transformations. Working with historian Ian Morris, Rosa has defined social energy as the “ability to move and achieve things in the world in the face of resistance.” This definition leads him to an analysis that also includes a societal energy crisis in which it is necessary to demand investment and growth.

His lecture “Do we need a concept of social energy?” took place on November 7, 2023 at the Humboldt University in Berlin. Here Rosa quoted Theodor W. Adorno from “Minima Moralia” to show the hope for a way out of the logic of increase. These revitalizing approaches are also being discussed further in the Academy of Sciences.

Academies of sciences and their role

The academies of sciences in Germany are committed to basic research and are committed to interdisciplinary exchange. The Academy Union, an association of eight German science academies, brings together over 2,000 scientists. They not only support excellent research, but also promote scientific exchange and advise society and politics on future issues.

The Academies Program, the Federal Republic of Germany's largest long-term research program for basic research in the humanities and social sciences, is coordinated by the Union of Academies. It deals with the development, preservation and research of cultural traditions worldwide. Hartmut Rosa and his new colleagues see themselves not only in an institution steeped in tradition, but also in the context of a comprehensive research network that addresses current and future-oriented topics.