As societies continue to become more diverse and pluralistic, culture has come to the fore as a core part of all spheres of life. Improving our understanding of culture and its ramifications for social unity and cohesion as well as its contestations in social and political life becomes a matter of urgency. C&D looks at culture as an indicator of identity, or as culture as an attribute of institutions that shape communities affected primarily through policymaking. 

Successful handling of cultural diversity will be the crucial factor determining whether social and political developments are stable. In this regard, cooperation between the members of increasingly heterogeneous societies across Europe will gain centre stage in public and political debates and will challenge the territorial concept of cultural regimes as the most effective tool for preventing conflicts. This makes essential that the C&D cluster looks at actor preferences (work package 1) 

Issues of identity have taken on new importance in a world of heightened inter-action and mobility across imaginary and physical borders. Hybridity, multilingualism, difference, community and religion are areas of new identity research. Cultural competence and cultural capital begin to matter as the argument that ‘culture counts’ takes hold. This makes critical examination of nation-states’ cultural policies central for our understanding of social interactions between peoples of different backgrounds, when they move across the increasingly porous borders and integrate with members of increasingly culturally hybrid societies. Cluster Culture & Diversity traces the changes in understandings of “minority”, analyses the policies affecting cultural diversity and looks at groups as sharing identities rather than being different in the wider European context. In so doing the C&D research moves from studying groups to analysing individual agency preferences, questioning the institutional status quo that supports majority at the expense of minority/migrant communities. This theme of research is in the centre of the three work packages of the cluster’s work.