The Maria Sibylla Merian Centre Conviviality-Inequality in Latin America (Mecila) is one of five international centres for advanced studies in the humanities and social sciences financed by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) in cooperation with local institutions and funding agencies.

Mecila is an academic consortium composed of three German institutions: Freie Universität Berlin (coordination), Universität zu Köln, and Ibero-Amerikanisches Institut (Stiftung Preußischer Kulturbesitz); and four Latin American institutions: Universidade de São Paulo, Centro Brasileiro de Análise e Planejamento, El Colegio de México, and Instituto de Investigaciones en Humanidades y Ciencias Sociales (CONICET/Universidad Nacional de La Plata). The Centre aims at developing cutting-edge research through horizontal interdisciplinary cooperation among scholars from Germany, Latin America, the Caribbean, and other regions of the world, drawing on long-term collaborative ties between the consortium institutions.

Mecila’s headquarters are in São Paulo, Brazil. Its activities take place at all seven member institutions, as well as at other cooperating institutions with joint projects.