The publication covers the period of funding under the DFG Excellence Initiative 2012–2019, a timespan that the Bamberg Graduate School of Social Sciences utilised to build a solid and scalable framework to propel junior research on an international level. It contains interviews with researchers who passed through the Graduate School, whether junior academics, who just got into research or established scientists who are on-going passionate about it. Plus, the publication presents essays that give insights into research projects, thematic analyses, and collaborations.