Press Releases



Press Release, 09/25/2013

Gerda Henkel Fellowships for Oxford and Munich awarded

Scholarships for research projects on Indian media and the history of the Thyssen family

How do Indian media present their country’s Muslims? Why do in particular English-language Indian media report differently on the Muslim population today compared to 20 years ago? Indian journalist Sudhi Ranjan Sen has been awarded the Gerda Henkel Fellowship for the Oxford University Journalist Fellowship Programme to explore these questions. He will focus in particular on two developments in India, namely the changes in working conditions for journalists, and Muslim communities’ political situation. In cooperation with the Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism at Oxford University and the Thomson Reuters Foundation, the Gerda Henkel Foundation is awarding Sudhi Ranjan Sen a six-month research fellowship starting 1 January 2014.

Photo: private

Sudhi Ranjan Sen works as Associate Editor Security & Strategic Affairs for the English-language Indian television broadcaster NDTV 24X7.

Dr. Simone Derix focuses her attention on the history of the Thyssen family. With a Gerda Henkel grant the historian will conduct her research at the renowned Historisches Kolleg in Munich for one year as of 1 October 2013 and complete her post-doctoral thesis. The latter centres on the question of the correlation between family and wealth from 1885 until the 1960s. Simone Derix reveals a highly mobile family whose members were active through changes in regimes and political systems not only in the German Empire and Federal Republic, but throughout Europe, the USA and South America.

Photo: Simon Büttner

Dr. Simone Derix is research associate in the History Faculty at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich.

Since 2003, the Gerda Henkel Foundation in cooperation with Oxford University (Reuters Institute for the Study of Journalism) and the Thomson Reuters Foundation has awarded a journalism fellowship within the renowned Journalist Fellowship Programme to journalists who work in the field of humanities. The Historisches Kolleg in Munich supports established researchers from all areas of the historical humanities in Germany and abroad by releasing them for research purposes. To date the Gerda Henkel Foundation has provided the Historisches Kolleg with funds for the bestowal of four “Gerda Henkel Junior Fellowships” to outstanding young researchers.