The Centre's research focus is the study of modern manuscripts and writing processes, especially comparative genetic criticism and research into  twentieth-century manuscripts by authors such as Samuel Beckett, James Joyce, Thomas Mann, Marcel Proust, Charles Darwin, Willem Elsschot. Between the different editorial traditions in Europe, the CMG tries to play an intermediary role as a board member of the Arbeitsgemeinschaft für Germanistische Edition and of the European Society for Textual Scholarship  (ESTS), whose aim is to provide an international and interdisciplinary forum for the theory and practice of textual scholarship and manuscript genetics in Europe.