The GRK 2638 is dedicated to questions concerning the nexus of norms, their critique and how norms relate to social change. It seeks to study the specific structures of normative practices common to the arts, law, religion, language and morality, thereby fostering a broad theoretical knowledge exchange in an interdisciplinary research environment. Its emphasis lies on the qualification of doctoral researchers within the framework of a focused research program and a structured training strategy.

The GRK is funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and run jointly by Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and Universität der Künste Berlin. The languages of instruction are both German and English.

The GRK encompasses 14 participating professors of 10 different disciplines, bringing together humanities and law studies. Its research agenda follows the hypothesis that in all these contexts – i. e. in arts, law, religion, language and morality –, applying a norm in its full sense implies to also critically reflect upon the norm. Consequently, this also implies, that the realization of standards may lead to transformation. The innovative research design of the GRK 2638 may be summarised as follows: