Profile: IMGWF

The Institute for History of Medicine and Science Studies (IMGWF) of the University of Lübeck conducts research and teaches on a broad spectrum of ethical, epistemological and historical aspects of medicine and the life sciences.

Medicine, life sciences, technology and informatics intervene in human life in many ways. They shape modern society and often pose challenges. The Institute takes these challenges, their emergence and effects and turns them into issues of research, reflection and teaching. In our research, we typically combine ethical, epistemological and historical avenues of investigation. With this work we explore the conditions and effects of modern biomedical practices and the roles of techno sciences involved in the modern lifeworld. We study the implementation and debate on the consequences of new treatment options within the horizon of individual needs as well as of ethical, social and political concerns.

The research projects currently pursued at the institute can be assigned to the following nine thematic research fields:

With its teaching the institute participates in all study programs at the University of Lübeck with a wide range of courses. In this way we want to live up to the maxim "studying in Lübeck means reflecting the present and thinking ahead“: We provide students in Lübeck with an opportunity - in fact, challenge them - to reflect about their field of study in its social and political context and challenge them to position themselves in society.

The University of Lübeck is still a relatively young university. It was founded in 1964 as Medical Academy on the site of the former Strecknitz Asylum, a reform-oriented mental institution that had been opened in 1912 on the outskirts of the city and was transformed into a general hospital in course of the murderous policies of National Socialism (more on that history here). Today, the Medical Academy has become a university with a clear focus on medicine, psychology, information-, life- and health sciences - a spectrum of study areas which we mirror with our epistemological and historical research.

While the university forms together with the technical university the academic campus in the city’s south, our institute is located directly in Lübeck’s center on the island forming the old town.

The building houses research offices, the library and a lector room and thus offers unique opportunities for smaller conferences, outreach activities and public events at the interface of science and society. In its role as an active intermediary between the university, the city and society we organize the university's Studium Generale as a lecture series for the academic community and the wider public to which we invite renowned experts on a specific topic every winter semester to Lübeck.

The institute is founding member of the Center for Cultural Research (ZKFL, Zentrum für Kulturwissenschaftliche Forschung), a consortium of academic and municipal institutions, ranging from the university, the school of music and the technical university to the museums and archives.
Similar to the graduate school the ZKFL fund dissertations on a broad range of cultural studies’ topics with a clear link to Lübeck and initiates and promote research by its member institutions.

Together with the Institute of Electrical Engineering (IME) the IMGWF started in 2020 the Ethical Innovation Hub (EIH), fostering transdisciplinary collaboration and propagating responsible research and innovation.

Since 2021, the IMGWF is a member of the European Association of Centres of Medical Ethics (EACME).

With curiosity and inquisitiveness we funnel current medical practices, explore ethical fields of action and investigate technological innovations - with a sense for history firmly grounded in the present and in view of the future.