Five projects from across Kiel University receive funding from the SEA-EU Seed Fund to strengthen international research collaborations
Plant science, linguistics, marine monitoring, psychology, and data science- the projects successfully funded through this year’s SEA-EU Seed Fund represent a diverse range of disciplines from across Kiel University. In total, more than 20,000 Euro was awarded to five projects. The projects, coordinated by researchers at Kiel University, also involve ten collaboration partners from four other SEA-EU universities.
Now in its third iteration, the SEA-EU Seed Fund offers researchers from Kiel University the opportunity to explore and strengthen links with scientists from SEA-EU partner universities.
“We’re very pleased to see a wide range of scientific disciplines from across Kiel University represented again in this year’s list of SEA-EU Seed Fund awardees,” said Prof. Dr. Ralph Schneider, Vice President for International Affairs and Early Career Researchers at Kiel University. “ The SEA-EU Seed Fund is a great way for researchers to explore and kick-start new collaborations and initiatives with international partners,” Schneider adds. “I am glad to see researchers here at Kiel University make use of this opportunity to engage with peers from across Europe.”
The SEA-EU Seed Fund available for members of Kiel University is part of an Alliance-wide initiative to foster more research collaboration across the SEA-EU network, especially among early career researchers. The next call for proposals will be announced in Autumn 2026. Additional SEA-EU research funding opportunities can be found here.
The projects:
Title: Workshop on democratic rights of minority language speakers
Project Lead at Kiel University: Prof. Dr. Elmar Eggert, Institute of Romance Studies, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Collaboration Partner(s): Prof. Martine Renouprez and Dr. Victoria Ferrety, University of Cádiz, Prof. Nelly Blanchard and Prof. Ronan Calvez, University of Brest
The project consists of a two-day international workshop to be held at the University of Cádiz in October 2026. The workshop addresses the “Democratic rights of minority language speakers” in the tension field between regional identity and the imperatives of internationalization. It will explore how regional language speakers negotiate their social status under conditions of “glocalization”, where global standard languages increasingly shape local communicative practices. The project carried out jointly with collaborators from the Universities of Brest and Cádiz, and builds on a three-year collaboration organising and hosting Blended Intensive Programmes regarding issues of regional multilingualism.
Title: Transforming Invasive Coastal Plants into Biotechnological Resources
Project Lead at Kiel University: Dr. Thomas Stegemann, Institute for Pharmaceutical Biology, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Collaboration Partner(s): Dr. Maria Joäo Rodrigues, University of Algarve
This project aims to investigate seasonal and geographic variation in the specialized metabolite profiles of selected invasive coastal plants. Such species are highly adapted to stressors such as salinity, high irradiance and nutrient limitation, conditions known to stimulate the production of specialized metabolites with biotechnological potential. This project builds on the premise that invasive coastal plants can be transformed from an ecological threat into a valuable resource. For this project, representative invasive species occurring in Portuguese and German coastal systems will serve as model systems, enabling comparisons across Atlantic – Mediterranean and Baltic contexts. Shared and aligned methodologies and workflow strategies will be developed across both sites supported by a joint workshop and research visits with the ultimate goal of establishing a sustainable cooperation framework between the labs based at The Algarve Centre of Marine Sciences (CCMAR-Algarve) and the Pharmaceutical Institute in Kiel.
Title: French trait-study: Personality and trans-cultural comparison
Project Lead at Kiel University: Prof. Dr. Anja Leue, Institute of Psychology, Faculty of Arts and Humanities
Collaboration Partner(s): Dr. Caroline Auffray and Dr. Mélissa Burgevin, University of Brest
Building on previous studies carried out within a German and British context, as well as an initial study in France, this project will focus on validating personality traits and individual differences of cognitive abilities for two large samples of French-native adults. The outcomes of these investigations will allow for a trans-cultural comparison of trait dimensions across German, British-English, and French samples. The study for the French-native sample has been approved by the Ethics Committee of the Medical Faculty at Kiel University. The study will be facilitated by a second digital project in collaboration with the University of Brest in 2026.
Title: SEA-EU Workshop: Marine Buoy Sensor Systems
Project Lead at Kiel University: Prof. Dr. Martina Gerken, Department of Electrical and Information Engineering, Faculty of Engineering
Collaboration Partner(s): Prof. Alan Deidun and Prof. Adam Gauci, University of Malta
The core activity of this project is a hybrid, interdisciplinary workshop hosted at the University of Malta, centred around the Multiparametric Buoy “BLUE” (Buoy for Long-term Underwater Exploration) installed in 2025 and its use as a real-world testbed for sensor integration. The workshop will be organised jointly with colleagues from the University of Malta during a two-month research stay in autumn 2026. The workshop will bring together researchers from Kiel University and multiple SEA-EU partner institutions working on marine sensing technologies, ocean observation, and environmental monitoring. A particular emphasis will be placed on early career researchers, and project funds will be used to fund travel for ten participants. The workshop is anticipated to initiate joint research proposals and longer-term collaborations within the SEA-EU network.
Title: Bridging Disciplines: Researchers’ Needs and Adoption of MRPs
Project Lead at Kiel University: Dr. Andrea Göhring, The Leibniz Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Stable Isotope Research, Faculty of Mathematics and Natural Sciences
Collaboration Partner(s): Prof. Alicia Martín Navarro, University of Cádiz
Designed to facilitate cross-disciplinary communication and reproducibility, Modular Research Pipelines (MRPs) enable researchers to describe workflows in modular steps. Based on work already being done by researchers within the Data Science and Data Management Platform (Cluster of Excellence ROOTS, Kiel), this project will focus on identifying the needs and expectations of researchers in Kiel and Cádiz. The collaborative work will include semi-structured interviews and focus group discussions and be facilitated by two research stays in Cádiz. The outcome will ultimately inform the development of a MRP tool. This project brings together researchers from the Instituto Universitario de Investigación para el Desarrollo Social Sostenible (INDESS) at University of Cádiz with researchers from Kiel University (Leibniz Laboratory for Radiometric Dating and Isotope Research, Department of Computer Science, Cluster of Excellence ROOTS) and combines expertise in technology adoption, cross-disciplinary research designs and research data management.
