The coronavirus pandemic overshadowed the year 2021, making it very difficult for young adults to meet their peers from other parts of Europe, Turkey, or China. Though we were able to establish new and innovative online formats and to lower our carbon emissions because travel was no longer possible, there can be no substitute for face-to-face encounters and experiences between young people.

In its report “Freedom in the World 2022”, US think tank Freedom House described how authoritarian rule is gaining in power worldwide. Admittedly, Europe still has the best track record in this respect. In Slovenia, Hungary, Poland, and Turkey, however, the work of non-governmental organizations is being obstructed, the rights of LGBTQ+ people are being limited and press freedom is being curtailed. We will continue to use our funding to empower and strengthen those individuals and institutions who stand up for a liberal, diverse, and democratic society that is based on civil society forces.

Stiftung Mercator has dedicated itself in particular to protecting the rule of law in Europe. We support theoreticians and practitioners who are committed to this principle as the basis for our coexistence in the EU. Many of them find themselves under considerable pressure. Being able to engage in exchange with one another helps them to draw up strategies, to remain resilient and to continue their important and necessary work to promote Europe’s rule of law. At the same time, we also believe it is important to keep an eye on the EU’s foreign relations. This is why we developed practical proposals in 2021 that will allow us to better understand our relations with Turkey and China and to shape them in readiness for the future, in the spirit of European values.

The constant warming of the Earth’s atmosphere also remains a challenge. Ever since the new German government began its work, the political framework conditions for protecting the climate have changed significantly. Climate action is a recurrent leitmotif that can be found throughout the coalition agreement, important requirements having been defined in areas ranging from construction and development policy to foreign policy.

In the coming years, Stiftung Mercator will focus particularly on activating those groups in society that have not hitherto been sufficiently involved in climate action discourse. In this context, we have already established cooperation with the National Network for Civil Society (BBE) and will continue to work closely with this organization in the future. The BBE encompasses a wide-ranging network of civil society actors who concentrate for the most part on issues that go beyond conventional climate and environmental engagement but who have nonetheless embraced climate action.

The coronavirus pandemic has driven forward the digitization of all areas of life considerably in Germany. For example, artificial intelligence is already being used to help diagnose diseases and to develop vaccines. However, the pandemic also highlighted the risks posed by the digital transformation: the business models and algorithmic ranking systems used by social networks allowed disinformation about Covid-19 to spread particularly quickly. The new German government’s plans give reason to hope that these and other undesirable developments will shift into the forefront of the political and legislative discourse. At the same time, various legislative procedures are underway at the European level, such as the Digital Services Act for the regulation of digital platforms and the Artificial Intelligence Act for the regulation of AI systems, provide an opportunity to jointly consider innovation and the protection of basic rights in Europe.

In 2021, Stiftung Mercator’s newly created thematic field of Digital Society set in motion and funded a wide range of projects that are helping to research the consequences that digitalization will have on society, to draw attention to the changes and to make the voices of civil society and scientific actors heard in the discourse. For example, the research project The Ethics of Digitalization ‒ From Principles to Practices answered ethical questions about automation. How can algorithmic systems be made transparent and effectively supervised? Germany’s Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier, under whose patronage the project was conducted, expressly thanked Stiftung Mercator for its support and praised the project’s international and practical orientation. An alliance of over 100 international and interdisciplinary research institutes implemented the project, which was coordinated by the Alexander von Humboldt Institute for Internet and Society.

Besides pursuing scientific work, we have strengthened actors in German and European civil society, especially in terms of representing their interests in digital policy processes. For instance, as well as supporting the civil society F5 alliance, we also provide funding for European Digital Rights, a European association of civil society organizations. These partners work on legislative proposals in the area of digital policy at European level. In supporting them, we are bolstering a counterbalance to those tech giants that have hitherto dominated the political discourse on data usage, social media platforms and the use of artificial intelligence.

According to the Bertelsmann Stiftung, nearly half of the people living in Germany believe that polarization in society is on the increase in our country. To strengthen social cohesion, we wish to promote the participation of disadvantaged individuals. When parents were forced by the pandemic to teach their children at home, actors in early-years and school education – like our partner organization Ruhrfutur – faced particular challenges. However, workers in precarious jobs were also hard hit, as was revealed by the Mercator-funded project The precarious employment of foreign workers and prospects for their participation in Germany.

We can also improve social cohesion by eliminating prejudice, however. By organizing encounters at everyday places, we bring different societal groups together, thereby creating a dialogue between them. For example, Stiftung Mercator funded the kitchen on the run project that initiates conversations between established residents and immigrants.

In addition, the project re:set was launched. It empowers young people in the state of Saxony to actively promote a democratic, diversity-sensitive and discrimination-free culture of debate in the digital realm. The project strengthens work with children and young people by enabling young people and qualified educators to engage in further training in the area of social diversity and discrimination.