Comprehensive report on a workshop held in the framework of the European Cultural Dialogue, November 2007, directed by Claus Leggewie (Essen), Adalbert Evers (Gießen), Ludger Heidbrink (Essen). Participants: Uwe Becker (Amsterdam), Hartmut Kaelble (Berlin), Franz Xaver Kaufmann (Bielefeld), Alexandra Kemmerer (Würzburg), Helmut König (Aachen), Stefan Leibfried (Bremen), Ilse Lenz (Bochum), Thomas Leoni (Wien), Emanuel Richter (Aachen), Christoph Sachße (Brüssel). The European Cultural Dialogue in Essen offers to the European public and the European thinking a forum for open, critical and integrative talks. The project gets conceived and coordinated in the framework of the RUHR 2010 – cultural capital of Europe by the Institute for Advanced Studies in the Humanities (KWI) in Essen since 2005. This special workshop has been held in cooperation with the EU-funded research network of excellence “Civil Society and New Forms of Governance in Europe” (CINEFOGO), directed by Thomas Boje (Roskilde) and represented at the workshop by Adalbert Evers.