At the HCIAS, we understand Ibero-America to be a macro-region. In our research and teaching, we set a focus on Latin America as well as the Iberian Peninsula, explicitly including those areas with which there are close historical, cultural, political, or socioeconomic ties.

Research at the HCIAS unites a variety of disciplines from the social sciences, the humanities, cultural studies, and environmental studies which all aim at contributing to an integral description and analysis conducive to a better understanding of “Ibero-America”. Under the framing topic of “Spaces and Dynamics”, our transversal research program is organized into three overarching research foci which examine Ibero-America's social, cultural, and environmental realities. From varying perspectives, we approach the continuities and disjunctures, transformations, and internal and external interconnections that shape the networks, institutions, and dynamics of communication in this macro-region.