In 2012, in close collaboration with colleagues at Göttingen University, the Council launched the Transregional Virtual Research Institute (TVRI), a collaborative enterprise that brings together faculty from different disciplines, different international campuses, and at different stages in their careers to further research and training on particular themes. In essence, the TVRI is designed to function as a research center that is not physically grounded at a single institution.
The inaugural TVRI theme, Media, Activism, and the New Political, focuses on the interrelationship of media and politics within and across InterAsia, with a particular emphasis on China, India, and the Arab world. This theme is at the center of timely discussions on mass mobilization, collective action, and the ways in which mediated practices are situated in relation to larger geopolitical and structural shifts, and it has the potential to be catalytic for further work in related areas and disciplines. TVRI scholars are actively working to generate original essays and academic resources for a new generation of researchers.