The Collaborative Research Center SFB 482 examines the specific constellation of ideas and their effects that is still connected to terms such as Weimarer Klassik (Weimar Classicism), Jenaer Frühromantik (Jena Romanticism) or Deutscher Idealismus (German Idealism).
The SFB explores this subject from the perspectives of history, aesthetics and the history of science. With the central concept of the Ereignis Weimar-Jena (the Weimar-Jena Phenomenon) the SFB offers a transdisciplinary and innovative approach to a unique historical formation that is being discussed now by the national and international research community.

The concept of Ereignis (phenomenon) refers to the specific characteristics of Weimar, the capital of the Duchy, and of the university town Jena. Furthermore, the term describes the link that unites the different methodological approaches into an integrated perspective on this complex constellation.
Already by 1800 the intellectual and cultural productivity of the protagonists of the Phenomenon Weimar-Jena had made it a cultural-aesthetic center. Wieland, Herder, Goethe and Schiller, but also critical philosophers like Fichte, Schelling and Hegel and scientists such as Ritter and Döbereiner found conditions which they considered beneficial for their purposes in provincial Weimar-Jena.

The most important factor was the intensive and candid intellectual exchange which was rarely restricted by the court. In the Weimar-Jena area an intensification of communication took place which was an important prerequisite for the development of an outstanding cultural center that flourished for about 50 years. The dense personal networks of the protagonists belonged to a widespread web of social and economic relations, and these relations can still be traced in the numerous collected letters of the poets and philosophers, but also of their wives, various private individuals and, particularly, of the different publishers, reflecting communication needs and a thirst for knowledge that was satisfied by the textbooks and journals which were distributed in great numbers and largely produced in Weimar-Jena.

According to an initial hypothesis of the SFB, which can be considered to be the central finding of the overall project up to now, the Enlightenment culminated in the Weimar-Jena Phenomenon because here its fundamental ideas were brought together and developed further; here they were partly reformulated and experimentally transferred into the social and intellectual practice. The SFB's precise description of networks and discussion circles and of the world views and interpretations as well as of the self-reflective sciences and arts developed here provides a basis for comparison with other places that have already been examined by Enlightenment research.