About the RTG

Cross- Border Labour Markets: Transnational Market Makers, Infrastructures, Institutions

The Research Training Group 2951

Speaker: Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann (Bielefeld University)
Co-Speaker: Prof. Karen Shire, Ph.D. (University of Duisburg-Essen)

The RTG 2951 offers outstanding doctoral researchers the opportunity to take part in an innovative research and qualification programme at the forefront of interdisciplinary labour market research with a global outlook.

The Research Training Group (RTG) 2951 pursues a highly innovative Research Programme, as it sees cross-border labour markets as social structures and puts them centre stage.  Although cross-border labour mobility and migration have developed into key issues within globalization research, conventional labour market analysis has until now not addressed ‘cross-border labour markets’ as a phenomenon sui generis. Global structures and dynamics have so far been largely scrutinized as factors impacting national labour markets, and the terms ‘emigration’ and ‘immigration’ that dominate the relevant literature underscore this focus on national labour markets as units of analysis.

The Research Training Group (RTG) 2951 takes a different approach. It investigates what makes it possible for cross-border labour markets to emerge and be consolidated, i.e., how the coordination problems that are amplified in border crossing markets are ‘solved’. The emergence of cross-border labour markets can be observed in multiple sectors: in low-skilled labour (e.g. in domestic work or meat packing) as well as among highly-skilled workers and professionals (e.g. academics, consultants, medical doctors), or in sports, the arts, and the entertainment industry at large.

The RTG 2915 offers early career researchers a highly innovative Qualification Programme. It is committed to establishing a top-level, research-oriented qualification for early career researchers, preparing them for outstanding academic and non-academic careers. 

The RTG 2951 is jointly hosted by Bielefeld University’s Faculty of Sociology and the Faculty of Business Administration and Economics, and by the University of Duisburg-Essen’s Faculty of Social Sciences and Faculty of Business Administration and Economics. 

For further information on the DFG Funding Programme “Research Training Groups”, please consult the DFG Webpage.