The University of Crete is a young public educational institution committed to excellence in research and teaching. Established in 1973, the University accepted its first students in 1977-78.  It now has 17 Departments in 5 Schools (Philosophy, Education, Social Sciences, Sciences & Engineering, and Medicine) as well as a number of affiliated research-oriented institutions, including the Skinakas Observatory, the Natural History Museum, and the University General Hospital. Currently, over 14,000 undergraduates and 2500 postgraduate students are registered here. They are educated by an outward looking academic faculty of around 500 members, supported by over 150 adjunct lecturers, as well as post-doctoral researchers, 110 laboratory support staff and instructors, and 380 technical and administrative staff. The international orientation of the University is reflected in its track record of collaborations with many of the leading research and educational institutions in Europe and worldwide as well as active promotion of mobility and exchange programmes. Reflecting its research activity and associated initiatives, the University of Crete is the first Greek University to have signed the EU Charter and the Code for the recruitment of researchers, and forms part of the Euraxess European network for the mobility of researchers.

The Department of Sociology, operating since 1987, includes members with expertise in major fields of sociology, trained in reputable universities across Europe and North America, who have been participating in a wide variety of EC projects and activities including those under the 5th, 6th and 7th Framework. According to the external evaluation committee of experts in 2013, the Department has achieved national research excellence.

Freie Universität Berlin is a leading research institution. It is one of the German universities successful in all three funding lines in the federal and state Excellence Initiative, thereby receiving additional funding for its institutional future development strategy.

Freie Universität can thus take its place as an international network university in the global competition among universities. Development and assessment of research projects takes place within various focus areas, research networks, and platforms for interdisciplinary collaborative research.

The university’s performance in the Excellence Initiative provided funding for several new graduate schools and transdisciplinary research clusters. In particular, the graduate schools play a key role in the development of internationally competitive research centers of excellence.

Freie Universität Berlin is a full university with 15 departments and central institutes offering over 150 degree programs across a wide range of subjects.

The Institute of Sociology offers a broad spectrum of research activities, with particular focus on an analysis of transnationalization and Europeanization processes and international comparison, especially of European societies. This research and teaching agenda is implemented together with the Central Institutes for East European Studies, Latin American Studies, and the John F. Kennedy Institute for North American Studies as well as the Social Science Research Center Berlin (WZB) and the German Institute for Economic Research (DIW).

Members of the Institute are involved in the German Research Foundation (DFG) Research Unit studying European socialization processes, the Socio-Economic Panel (SOEP), and the National Educational Panel Study (NEPS) as well as at several graduate schools funded by the German Excellence Initiative. This research profile is complemented by a research-oriented master’s program "Sociology – European Societies," which is offered in English and German.