Slow, inefficient, boring: this is how most people would describe bureaucracy. While the majority try to avoid bureaucracy, Dr Alexandra Irimia deliberately focuses on it in her research. For her project at the Department of German and Comparative Literature and Culture (IGLK), hosted by Prof. Kerstin Stüssel, she is examining how bureaucracy is portrayed in literature.

Will it be possible in future to prepare proofs developed in cutting-edge mathematical research with a reasonable amount of human effort so that they can be verified by computers in real time? Prof. Dr. Christoph Thiele and Prof. Dr. Floris van Doorn from the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM), a Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn, want to help make this possible. The two researchers submitted a joint application for a coveted Synergy Grant from the European Research Council (ERC). Following the award of the grant, the European Union will now provide total funding of 6.4 million euros to the “Harmonic Analysis with Lean Formalization” (HALF) project over the next six years. Lean is a relatively new programming language that is increasingly establishing itself as the standard for mathematical formalization.

Extreme weather events such as heavy rain and flooding pose growing challenges for early warning systems worldwide. Researchers at the University Bonn, the Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ), and the Lamarr Institute for Machine Learning and Artificial Intelligence have developed RiverMamba, a new AI model that can predict river discharges and flood risks more accurately than previous methods. The research paper has been accepted for NeurIPS 2025 – a sign of scientific excellence in Bonn-based research. RiverMamba thus makes an important contribution to climate adaptation and risk prevention – topics that are receiving special attention worldwide, particularly around UN World Tsunami Awareness Day on November 5th.

IBM and the Research Institute for Discrete Mathematics at the University of Bonn have maintained a close and productive collaboration since 1987. This cooperation was originally initiated by the institute’s long-time director, Bernhard Korte, who sadly passed away in April of this year. The partners have now expanded and intensified their cooperation.

Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn have discovered how a small, naturally occurring RNA molecule in the kidney activates a mutated immune receptor, triggering a chain reaction. In cooperation with Nanyang Technological University Singapore and the University Hospital Würzburg, among others, the study provides an explanation for how a point mutation in the immune receptor RIG-I transforms the body's defense system into a self-destructive force and causes severe organ-specific autoimmune diseases. The results have now been published in the journal Science Immunology.

Why are pumpkins orange, melons yellow and cucumbers green—but never pink or blue? A team of researchers at the University of Bonn has set out to unravel this botanical mystery. Their preprint reveals that, over the course of evolution, the entire gourd family (Cucurbitaceae, or cucurbits) has lost the genes responsible for blue and pink pigments. What is more, this loss is permanent—an extremely rare phenomenon among plant families.

Following completion of intensive exterior restoration work, Poppelsdorf Palace has now been officially handed back to its owner, the University of Bonn, by the North Rhine-Westphalia state construction and real estate agency (Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb NRW, or BLB NRW). The handover ceremony was held in the palace courtyard on October 29. 

A space for encounters, dialogue and experimental urban design began to be created right in the heart of downtown Bonn in September 2025. In this “BACK:LAB – Labor für künstlerische Stadtforschung” (“lab for creative urban research”), students from the Department of Architecture at Alanus University of Arts and Social Sciences in Alfter and the Department of Geography at the University of Bonn have joined forces with residents, shopkeepers and other interested members of the public to study the Marthashof. This courtyard, hidden behind a row of buildings between Bertha-von-Suttner-Platz, Kölnstraße, Langstraße and Sandkaule in the city center, has proven somewhat controversial.