Genius Loci. Kantian Research in Kaliningrad

Abstract

Institutionalisation of a research school often causes difficulties due to different circumstances: scientific policy, funding, staffing, thematic uniqueness of re­search team members. In the situation of long-term existence of a school, there may be problems caused by the need to combine old, established scientific strategies and the newest vectors of research interest, determined both by the internal logic of the development of the subject area of research, and the challenges from the international scientific community and non-scientific factors. It cannot be said that all these aspects and difficulties had no influ­ence on the processes of formation of Academia Kantiana, the research unit of the Immanuel Kant Baltic Federal University. However, the localisation of all, including heterogeneous, tendencies in the intellectual space of Kantian philosophy made it possible to organically reorganise and institutionalise re­search strategies and successfully reach new horizons of Kantian studies and possibilities of modern use of its ideas. I comprehensively present the scientific and scientific-organisational activities of the Academia Kantiana in the context of similar Russian and international initiatives and show the logic of the re­search program formation and the main milestones of its implementation. I also give a brief overview of the main structural elements of the established intellec­tual ecosystem: scientific projects, scientific conferences and summer schools, the quarterly Kantian Journal.