Following seed funding from the Mercator Research Center Ruhr (MERCUR) in 2017, the Mercator Foundation has been providing funding since May 2018 for a period of five years (through May 2023) to further develop and raise the profile of this area of expertise. This grant enabled the further refinement of the program’s content and the consolidation of strategic management structures, which have relieved the participating researchers of administrative and coordination tasks across the eight research fields. During this phase, the KoMet office was located at the three UA Ruhr universities in Essen, Bochum, and Dortmund.
In 2016 and 2017, the Competence Field of Metropolitan Research received support in the form of a grant from the Mercator Research Centre Ruhr (MERCUR), an institution of the Mercator Foundation and the Ruhr University Alliance. Thanks to this seed funding, the administrative office of the Competence Field of Metropolitan Research was established in February 2017.
The office consists of three research associates who serve as points of contact at the three universities and handle the organizational and coordinating tasks involved in establishing the Competence Field of Metropolitan Research.