University is a society in which everyone is responsible for the shaping of relationships to him-/herself, to others and to the world based on diverse forms of knowledge and knowledge representation. University is thus regarded as a place for social and cultural development including academia as well as professional knowledge (Schleiermacher 2017 [1808]). University thus has the task to reflect on itself as part of society.

For mapping the concept of university theoretical as well as methodological foundations have to be laid. The joint concern in this publication is to take the various complementary or conflicting claims of reality of different epistemic communities into account. According to the university´s social mandate, such claims contain ideas about challenges arising in social and environmental fields. By investigating various cultural archives – formal and informal, analogous and digital etc. – multiple, simultaneous, and concurring claims of reality, experience, and meaning can be mapped in order to form the idea of university.