The Maria Sibylla Merian Center for Advanced Latin American Studies (CALAS) is a German-Latin American Center for Advanced Studies in Latin America (with main headquarters in Guadalajara, Mexico and regional headquarters in Buenos Aires, Argentina, Quito, Ecuador and San José, Costa Rica), which is an international reference point for research in the social sciences and humanities and promotes interdisciplinary and interregional dialogue.

To this end, CALAS offers a variety of individual and collective research formats that focus on the topic of how social agents perceive and react to multiple crises.

CALAS has created an institutional framework for long-term joint research with leading and innovative researchers in the humanities and social sciences on how to cope with crises in relation to violence and conflict resolution, social inequality, environmental change and regional identities.