Our Mission
The Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies (CASSIS) is a new interdisciplinary research center at the Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn in the field of strategic foresight, European and security policy research. Committed to the approach "Global Challenges Need European Responses", CASSIS contributes in interdisciplinary and inter-institutional work to develop, evaluate and publicly discuss European strategies to current challenges in the field of foreign and security policy.
Current
Dossier Ukraine
The experts of CASSIS offer in various formats from their interdisciplinary perspectives classification and analysis on the Russian attack on Ukraine and its background.
The International Security Forum Bonn 2022
From 29 September to 2 October 2022, the ISFB took place for the seventh time in the UN and federal city as the most significant international security conference in North Rhine-Westphalia and all neighboring federal states. After two years of digital/hybrid implementation during the SARS-CoV-2 pandemic, in 2022, the ISFB was conducted entirely in person.
Our Focus
Research at CASSIS revolves around a broad conception of security: On the one hand, the focus lies on the interdisciplinary examination of traditional foreign and security issues such as inter-state conflicts, competing international systems of order and a return of geopolitics. On the other hand, researchers examine non-traditional security challenges such as cyber and energy security, terrorism and human security, focusing in particular on health and food security.
EUCERS: Climate an Energy Security
European Cluster for Climate, Energy and Resource Security
Lead:
Dr. Friedbert Pflüger
Prof. Dr. Wolfram Hilz,
Prof. Dr. Volker Kronenberg,
Security and Strategy Research
Henry Kissinger Professorship for Security and Strategy Research
Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlie
Global Infrastructure
Politik and Governance of Global Infrastructures
Lead:
Prof. Dr. Maximilian Mayer
International Security Forum Bonn
The ISFB is a high-level international event to ensure dialogue on current foreign and security policy issues.
Frederik Schmitz is funded for his research project on the role of emotions and sensory perceptions in memory infrastructures in Taiwan and which influence these have on parties' political support. His case study examines museums and restaurants as nostalgic memory sites run by supporters and members of the Chinese Nationalist Party (Kuomintang). These memory sites enable visitors to take a performative part in a curated Taiwanese past and let it affect them through sensory perceptions. According to the research hypothesis, these memory infrastructures are used to gain political support through nostalgia.
This Festschrift in honor of Professor Xuewu Gu's 65th birthday brings together contributions on two closely intertwined key phenomena in international relations: Power and Power Shifts.
With contributions from numerous CASSIS members such as Prof. James D. Bindenagel, Dr. Enrico Fels, Dr. Hans-Dieter Heumann, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Hilz, Prof. Dr. Maximilian Mayer and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlie.
The position is to support the CASSIS office in the maintenance and design of the Center's web presence. The focus is on maintaining and constantly updating the website of a scientific center in the excellent research and teaching environment of the University of Bonn with a strong public outreach. Redesigns, optimizations and conceptions of the online presence of CASSIS are an equally important part of the area of responsibility and entail a large, creative and early autonomous design freedom.
Cassis staff members Maximilian Schranner, Frederik Schmitz and Philip Nock, together with Lukas Hochscheidt and Leonie Hopgood, write a post on Blog 49security about why the next generation of security policymakers is ready to take responsibility for tough decisions.
Dr. Katharina C. Cramer receives presitgious DAAD PRIME Fellowship.
Dr. Katharina Cramer and Jun.-Prof. Dr. Maximilian Mayer will lead a sub-project of the four-year EU project called ReMade@ARI from September 1st.
The Digital Dependence Index provides a precise description of the state of affairs that can be used to assess whether the current policy approach in Brussels and Berlin, as well as the extent of the investments that have been initiated, are more than merely symbolic.
Prof. Maximilian Mayer is a guest on SRF's Tagesgespräch and puts the current protests in China in context.
Prof. Maximilian Mayer and the president of the Bundesverband IT-Mittelstand (bitmi) call in the tagesspiegel background for a more strategic digital policy from the German government that also takes global dependencies in the technology sector into account.
Prof. Maximilian Mayer and Narayanappa Janardhan, senior research fellow at the Anwar Gargash Diplomatic Academy in Abu Dhabi, examine in a article for Nikkei Asia how middle powers are trying to fend off pressure to choose sides between the U.S. and China and
Till Haase and Martina Schulte from Deutschlandfunk Nova discuss the study on digital autonomy conducted by Prof. Maximilian Mayer and Yen-Chi Lu.
Prof. Maximilian Mayer talks about Germany's economic dependence on China in an interview with Deutschlandfunk Nova.
In an interview with Phoenix on 15.11.2022, Dr Frank Umbach talks about German gas policy, security of supply in winter and the implications of importing liquefied gas.
In an interview with Phoenix on 24.10.2022, Dr Frank Umbach talks about further assistance for Ukraine, e.g. by helping to rebuild the destroyed energy infrastructure and economic cooperation.
The Chancellor's Power Word - Interview with Frank Umbach, Energy Expert
Events
CASSIS offers a wide range of events on current foreign and security policy issues.
Prof. Ulrich Schlie on the process of reunification in the light of the friendship between Helmut Kohl and Giulio Andreotti.
"Events related to the Arab uprisings, ISIS’s rise to power and Russia’s aggression against parts of Ukraine in 2014 posed complex, though distinct challenges for the Federal Republic of Germany. How well were German leaders and officials informed about nascent as well as short-term developments beforehand and once these crises erupted? The widely shared appearance of sharp discontinuity in the way related historical processes unfolded raises questions about the degree to which decision makers and officials in government were taken by surprise."
This Festschrift in honor of Professor Xuewu Gu's 65th birthday brings together contributions on two closely intertwined key phenomena in international relations: Power and Power Shifts.
With contributions from numerous CASSIS members such as Prof. James D. Bindenagel, Dr. Enrico Fels, Dr. Hans-Dieter Heumann, Prof. Dr. Wolfram Hilz, Prof. Dr. Maximilian Mayer and Prof. Dr. Ulrich Schlie.
The seizure of power by the National Socialists in January 1933 is a key event in world history. Hitler's rapid consolidation of power and the elimination of democracy virtually overnight still astonish and shock to this day. And to this day, historians disagree about the reasons for the end of the Weimar Republic and the rapid success of the National Socialists.
This book casts an international perspective on the epochal year 1933 90 years later and explores the questions: How could it happen? How can something similar happen again? And can we learn anything from it in times when democracies are under pressure and dictatorships are on the rise?
Nicolas Huppenbauer, Dr. Ying Huang and Prof. Maximilian Mayer explore the tension between digital fragmentations and connectivity in Chinese cyberspace and introduce a new term "selective connectivity".
Associate Fellow Ying Huang explores the issues of cyberspace fragmentation and global cyberspace governance in her article for the Journal of International Studies (国际政治研究). So far it is only available in Chinese.
Prof. Maximilian Mayer and Ga Young Lee are examining the genesis of South Korea's proactive pandemic management and the resulting learning processes.
Dr. Frank Umbach discusses China's interest in Afghanistan's wealth of raw materials and the implications for EU security of supply with regard to critical raw materials.
CASSIS - Center for Advanced Security, Strategic and Integration Studies
Rheinische Friedrich-Wilhelms-Universität Bonn