Institute of Germanic Studies

The Institute of Germanic Studies was founded in 1950. The Institute is primarily a research institute, serving the needs of postgraduate students and scholars from the United Kingdom and abroad. The Institute has a wide-ranging publishing programme, including monographs, volumes of essays, conference proceedings, dissertations and bibliographies. Its programme of activities comprises lectures by guest speakers, symposia on particular authors and/or topics, readings by visiting writers, reading workshops, and colloquia for postgraduate students. The Institute also hosts the intercollegiate course leading to the MA degree in German of the University of London.

The Institute's Library holds over 87,000 volumes (nearly 500 current periodicals). It is widely recognised as the principal research collection for German in the University of London, and is the largest of its kind not only in the United Kingdom, but indeed anywhere outside the German-speaking countries. The reference collection covers the language and literature of all periods, with outstanding holdings of journals, reference works, and contemporary writing. Its book collection starts with the printed works of the late fifteenth century and comes right up to the present, whilst its extensive manuscript and archive holdings (many of which remain unknown and unpublished) range from the mid-ninth century to contemporary poetry.

The Research Centre for German Exile Studies was established at the IGS in 1995, when the Institute offered a home to this new organisation, which combined the former London Research Group for German Exile Studies and the Research Centre for Germans and Austrians in Great Britain, previously at the University of Aberdeen. The work of the Centre focuses on the history of those German-speaking emigrés who found refuge in Great Britain, on their personal recollections and experiences, their reception in British society, and their enrichment of the life of their new country of residence in such varied spheres as the professions, industry and commerce, literature, art and culture, politics, publishing, the media, and the world of entertainment and leisure.