Social Science meets Design

The Visual Society Program - a cooperation between the WZB and the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK) - brings together young designers and social scientists in order to cross boundaries of their disciplines. The goal is to create new approaches to socially relevant topics and to visually implement social science research results in an analytically sound way.

The program contributes to interdisciplinary work and research and is intended to invite critical examination of traditional methods. Designers and social scientists can develop new ways of communicating social science findings and try out new tools and methods to approach research questions for which traditional social science methods are inadequate. Given the increasing complexity of social and scientific issues, the program seeks to train designers and social scientists to become "transformers" who can communicate research knowledge to society.

Scientists and designers work together in teams, thereby developing an understanding of each other's principles, methods, and techniques. Master's students from Professor David Skopec's (UdK Berlin) specialist class in information design work on projects at the WZB and are involved in all phases of scientific work. WZB researchers can also participate in the methods lab at the UdK Berlin and gain knowledge about the basics, methods and working techniques of visual design.