The Center for the Understanding of Social Processes (Maison d'analyse des processus sociaux or MAPS) represents the convergence of the interests of social scientists of the University of Neuchâtel and their wish to strengthen the exchanges between their disciplines. The MAPS is conceived as a meeting place for young researchers and PhD students and as a site for transdisciplinary knowledge production, translation and transfer. In addition to a joint Masters curriculum, cooperative work has begun on a number of interdisciplinary research projects..

The MAPS coordinates a joint Masters Program in the social and human sciences. (N.B. Most teaching is conducted in French but written work can be submitted in English). It also fosters cooperative work on a number of interdisciplinary research projects, articulated around three themes:

the circulation of persons
the circulation of wealth
the circulation of knowledge

Today's social formations are best -- we would even say are necessarily -- analyzed with a sustained attention to mobility (of persons and goods) and to circulation (of knowledge, technologies, wealth). It is this sustained interest in the interdisciplinary study of mobility and circulation that gives the MAPS its specific and innovative identity among Swiss universities and places the University of Neuchâtel at the center of contemporary developments in the social and human sciences.