During the »long 20th century«1 , political decisions and their implementation have been inconceivable without experts and their expertise. As a result, they recently developed into a promising interdisciplinary area of research.2 In societies describing themselves as »knowledge societies«3 and framing knowledge as an important pillar of development, experts were ascribed the role of modern day prophets: they framed the notions of the world, its nature and its environments, diagnosed transformations and continuities and provided advice how to improve certain political schemes and measures. But they were not only observers. They took also active parts in the shaping and implementation of political programs. Thus, they were active in international organizations, cooperated in national and transnational networks and provided technical assistance on missions on the spot or worked in the field in order to evaluate and improve the local situation. In this way experts had to perform their expertise according to different and often overlapping contexts. They used organizational and personal networks to pursue international, national or local agendas, and struggled through supposed objectivity and their personal advocacy.

All these aspects of expertise are in the center of the workshop »Experts Shape the World: Environments, Economies and Cultures of Expertise« in Mainz, which will be the platform for international scholars to discuss the role of experts in historical perspective in specific contexts and on different levels. The panels focus on »Experts on the Spot and in the Field: Locality and Expertise«, »Experts in Networks: Cooperation and Collaboration across Borders and Boundaries« and on »interacting Experts: Organized Experts and the multi‐level game of Expertise«. The talks deal with a manifold spectrum of experts ranging from conservation experts over scientists, agricultural experts, political, social and economic scholars to education experts and architects. Addressing the questions, how experts generated their knowledge and performed their expertise, how they interacted with other experts, politicians and non-experts, which orienting knowledge guided their evaluations and expertise, how and why they influenced agenda-setting, policy- and decision-making and how expertise was negotiated on different levels, the workshop promises fresh insights into the ways experts shaped the world. The workshop language will be English.

1 Charles S. Maier, »Consigning the Twentieth Century to History: Alternative Narratives for the Modern Era«, in: The American Historical Review 105 (2000), Nr. 3, S. 807-831.
2 For example: Stefan Fisch /Wilfried Rudloff (Hg.): Experten und Politik: Wissenschaftliche Politikberatung in geschichtlicher Perspektive, Berlin 2004; Martin Kohlrausch/ Katrin Steffen/ Stefan Wiederkehr (eds.): Expert Cultures in Central Eastern Europe. The Internationalization of Knowledge and the Transformation of Nation States since World War I. Osnabrück 2010; Ariane Leendertz, »Experten - Dynamiken zwischen Wissenschaft und Politik«, in: Christiane Reinecke/ Thomas Mergel (Hg.), Das Soziale ordnen. Sozialwissenschaften und gesellschaftliche Ungleichheit im 20. Jahrhundert, Frankfurt a. M. 2012, S. 337-369; Martin Kohlrausch/ Helmuth Trischler, Building Europe on Expertise. Innovators, Organizers, Networkers. Basingstoke 2014; Joris Vandendriessche/ Evert Peeters/ Kaat Wils (ed.): Scientists' Expertise Performance. Between State and Society, 1860-1960, Milton Park/ New York 2015.
3 Christiane Reinecke, Wissensgesellschaft und Informationsgesellschaft, Version: 1.0, in: Docupedia-Zeitgeschichte, 11.02.2010.