Twenty-one top researchers were the focus of an award ceremony held on Thursday evening in Berlin, where they were presented Germany’s most valuable research award, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. Among them was AI ethicist Prof. Dr. Aimee van Wynsberghe, who has been conducting research at the University of Bonn for the past year and a half. During the festive event, Federal Minister of Education and Research Bettina Stark-Watzinger and Hans-Christian Pape, President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, presented the awards which come with up to €5 million in funding.
An international team including Prof. Dr. Thomas Dohmen, spokesperson of the ECONtribute Cluster of Excellence at the Universities of Bonn and Cologne, has received a grant of up to $2.5 million from the U.S. National Science Foundation (NSF). In the funded study, the researchers will determine the extent to which students' personality traits, executive function skills, and preferences predict their later academic achievement and careers in science, technology, engineering and math (STEM). The project will run for five years.
From research to application: Up to € 50,000 funds are available for young scientists at the University of Bonn for product validations from their research. For the first time the Transfer Center enaCom is offering prototyping grants which support innovative research results to be further developed for commercialisation. Application deadline is May 19, 2022 for the current year; applications can be submitted four times a year in the future.
Redness, swelling, pain - these are signs of inflammation. It serves to protect the body from pathogens or foreign substances. Researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne were able to show that inflammatory reactions of an important sensor protein proceed in a specific spatial direction. This finding has the potential to conceivably stop inflammation at the "growing end", and thus bring chronic inflammatory diseases to a halt. The study has now been published in the journal "Science Advances".
After twelve years of funding, the Käte Hamburger Center for Advanced Study in the Humanities "Law as Culture" will host its final conference on May 12 and 13. Since 2010, the international research center has been reflecting on different systematic dimensions of law as a cultural fact. At the final conference, renowned scholars from various disciplines will speak on this topic and look back at the Center’s developmental dynamics. In addition, artists who have joined the Center as Artists in Residence will talk about their experiences with the cross-pollination of research and art.
Ethicist Prof. Dr. Christiane Woopen of the University of Bonn received this year's Wilhelm Weber Award in Dortmund for her many years of social commitment. The prize, named after the theologian and social scientist Prof. Dr. Wilhelm Weber (1925-1983), is awarded for "special services in the spirit of Catholic social ethics." During a ceremony at the Kommende Dortmund, the social institute of the archdiocese of Paderborn, former federal constitutional judge Prof. Dr. Paul Kirchhof gave the laudatory speech for the prize winner.
Malnutrition in developing countries is best addressed not by increasing the variety of crops grown on smallholder farms, but by improving access to markets. This is the conclusion of a recent study by the MwAPATA Institute in Malawi and the University of Bonn in Germany. More variety in animal production, however, does show positive effects. The findings are now published in the journal “Lancet Planetary Health”.
Prof. Dr. Uwe-Jens Wiese from the University of Bern receives a research award from the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Prof. Dr. Ulf-G. Meißner of the Helmholtz Institute for Radiation and Nuclear Physics at the University of Bonn nominated the scientist for the award. The two have known and appreciated each other for a long time and now want to further develop new methods together. The prize is endowed with 60,000 euros.