The word synergy has become a key term in theoretical cultural debates in recent years. But what exactly is meant when one speaks of cooperative interactions (synérgeia)? How do such models intervene in generating and structuring knowledge and how might they contribute in the long term to innovation in our knowledge-based society?

The interdisciplinary forum SynergieWissen, founded as part of the project Synergy. A History of Knowledge at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research Berlin (ZfL), wants to connect participants from both research and practical fields who concern themselves with the concepts of synergy in nature, art, and society. The Synergietalks discussion group was created to this end, in order to discuss practices, techniques, concepts, and models of cooperative interactions.

This Wiki platform supports the work of the forum as an interactive space for exchange among researchers and artists, who can furthermore publish their thoughts as Synergiefeatures on current research questions here. The Lab provides a sheltered working environment in which participants may develop experimental ideas and undertake preliminary work for a print publication. Our Blog publishes the latest news and regularly provides information about the various events of the forum, while Links presents a collection of thematically relevant questions and problem fields concerning the knowledge of synergy.

»Synergy is a key concept in many disciplines and, not least, it underlies collaborative processes of knowledge networking. These shall now be used to file SynergyKnowledge gathered over many years of project work, especially those little scraps and notes filled with findings, ideas and references, in a digital SlipBox and to test this out as a transparent research tool for free reuse and generation of new knowledge.«

The Project »Open Access Lexicon SynergieKnowledge« is promoted by the Open Science Fellows Program. The project goal is to file one’s own research results, to open it to a broad public and to make it reusable. To that end, the SynergyWiki will be supplemented by a digital SlipBox and a TopicList giving immediate access to concepts and thematic fields. The collaborative work process can be followed up in the project’s LogBook.

The SynergyFeatures platform presents texts as well as audio and visual media with further information on the following topics:
- Intelligent systems and socio-technical co-evolution (Klaus Mainzer)
- The charismatic as mediator between God and humankind (Martin Treml)
- Migraine research through synergetic methods (Markus Dahlem)
- Synergy as basic idea linking religion and medicine (Igor Polianski)
- Synergy concepts in art and construction (Synergy-Project)

We look forward to your feedback and topic suggestions for future features!

The Synergy-Project

Continue to the SynergyFeatures...

The SynergieWissen forum is run by the »Synergy - History of Knowledge« project at the Center for Literary and Cultural Research.
The project head, Tatjana Petzer, is a recipient of a Dilthey Fellowship from the Volkswagen Foundation’s “Focus on the Humanities” initiative.