The EMLS/MEST programme is integrated in the Master programme Social Policy, which focuses on social policy from an interdisciplinary and comparative perspective. Most lecturers in the MA Social Policy are part of the SOCIUM Research Center on Inequality and Social Policy, which is the only German research institute in social sciences which deals with theoretical and empirical questions of inequality, social policies and their social and political interdependencies. The interdisciplinary research focuses on the social, economic, political, cultural, organizational, legal, historical and sociomedical conditions and effects of social inequality, public social policies and their interdependencies. The research includes a mix of sociology, political and health sciences, economics and legal aspects.