Weber 2.0 is the scholarly blog portal of the Max Weber Foundation (MWS) and its institutes and partners. The goal is to create a network by connecting scholars at the institutes abroad and in the host countries to each other as well as to the scientific communities in Germany by providing them with forums for communication, collaboration and presentation of their research.

The portal is operated in conjunction with OpenEdition under the umbrella of Hypotheses in close cooperation with the German-language portal de.hypotheses.org which was initiated in 2011 by the German Historical Institute Paris. The MWS is making a commitment to creating a sustainable virtual infrastructure for professional communication in the humanities, which enables the potential for virtual collaboration, open distribution of information and the processing of knowledge to be fully realized.

This opens up new possibilities, especially for the international exchange of knowledge. The promotion of transnational, comparative humanities research is a unique characteristic of the MWS, and is what this platform is fundamentally about. The aim is to stimulate transnational dialogue on various topics, and active networking among stakeholders across borders. This way, scientific discourse and ideas from other countries can be taught in Germany and vice versa. Once the funding has been received and the hiring process completed, the contacts established amongst the institutes can lead to continued collaboration. The decentralized set-up of the MWS – its intrinsic characteristic of unity in diversity – offers unique and ideal conditions for the concept of the portal: The wealth of research accomplished by the individual institutes will be mapped while its visibility will be increased through centralization and common identity will be forged through networking.