Transdisciplinary Research Areas
Research for and with society: at the University of Bonn, we seek transdisciplinary solutions to the pressing issues of tomorrow.
The world itself does not exist divided neatly into selfcontained fields of scientific expertise. Global challenges such as the climate crisis, food security and the increasing division of society can only be overcome through innovative collaborative approaches.
This insight led to the University of Bonn forming six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) as a core element of the institution’s Excellence Strategy.
What are TRAs?
Research at the point where differing fields meet
Researchers at our University collaborate across disciplinary lines. Equipped with their own resources and professorships, the TRAs bring together more than 900 top-level researchers from the humanities, social sciences, natural sciences and life sciences. All TRAs strive through combined expertise to develop solutions capable of meeting the challenges of the future.
Research for and with society
Whenever possible, we capitalize on opportunities to collaborate with external partners, including research institutes, private enterprises, the media and actors in government and civil society. In order to come up with effective approaches and find answers to pressing questions affecting our future, research must be informed by empirical experience from everyday life in our society.
Transdisciplinary Research Areas at the University of Bonn
Bild © Universität Bonn / YouTube
Openness and cooperation
The TRAs are open to all researchers active at the University of Bonn and its partner institutions who are able to contribute to the specific topics being studied in them. The support that they give to academic and scientific partnerships also makes the TRAs incubators for new collaborative projects, ideas for which are discussed in workshops and lecture series. Financial support has already been secured for new research ideas, open-science initiatives and teaching projects as well as the groundwork for new Collaborative Research Centers and Research Training Groups. Conducting transparent research into and in dialogue with society is a key pillar of the University’s new research profile.
Sounds interesting? Find out more about our TRAs on this and the following pages and make sure to check out the linked reports.
Our six TRAs
Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems
Understanding complex systems through a combination of mathematical modelling, observation methods, computer-aided simulation and a creative mind.
Building Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions
How do the various components that matter is made from interact with one another? How do complex structures form on completely different length scales?
Life and Health
Understanding the complexities of life and coming up with new strategies for healthcare. Find out more about the TRA Life and Health.
Individuals, Institutions and Societies
Studying complex relationships between individuals, institutions and societies and developing new perspectives on micro- and macrophenomena.
Past Worlds and Modern Questions. Cultures Across Time and Space
We promote and connect up research into the prerequisites for modern societies, the conditions under which they develop and the processes by which heritage is negotiated.
Technology and Innovation for Sustainable Futures
The TRA Sustainable Futures explores institutional, research-based and technology-driven innovations for promoting sustainability.
Milestones of our TRAs
Use the filter on the right side to find milestones for a specific TRA or choose between five different categories.
Named after the University of Bonn physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), the Hertz Chairs lie at the heart of our efforts to promote excellence. They are filled with researchers of international repute who are leading lights in their field of expertise and burnish the profile of our Transdisciplinary Research Areas. These professors are based centrally within the University and given the freedom to establish new areas of research, forge links between disciplines and inject significant fresh momentum where they see fit.
Artificial Intelligence and Neurosciences
Prof. Dr. Dr. Dominik Bach
Within the TRA Life and Health, Dominik Bach is establishing a major new area of focus where the neurosciences meet psychiatry and computer science.
Designated Hertz Chair for Astrochemistry
Prof. Dr. Serena Viti
Within the TRA Matter, Serena Viti is establishing a major new area of focus at the interface between Astronomy and Chemistry.
Life Ethics
Prof. Dr. Christiane Woopen
Within the TRA Individuals and Societies, Christiane Woopen is studying four dynamics of our time that are interacting on a systemic level— technologization, economization, ecologization and globalization — as well as the associated processes of transformation.
Supporting researchers at all stages of their careers is one of the main aims of the University of Bonn in its role as a University of Excellence. This is why the Argelander Professorships (named after the University of Bonn astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander, 1799–1875) were set up. These tenure track professorships are specifically intended to help outstanding early-career researchers and enable them to explore and further develop their research interests at the interface between individual disciplines and beyond subject and faculty boundaries.
The Clausius Professorship was established to mark the 200th anniversary of the University of Bonn physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822–1888). It was awarded to the particularly exceptional early-career researcher Jun. Prof. Dr. Lena Funcke from the Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions Transdisciplinary Research Area.
Integrated System Modeling for Sustainability Transitions
Jun. Prof. Dr. Wolfram Barfuss
Wolfram Barfuss works in the TRA Sustainable Futures to reshape human-environment modeling to identify critical leverage points for sustainability transitions.
Biohybrid Research
Jun. Prof. Dr. Patrycja Kielb
By focusing on “bio-spectro-electrochemistry,” Patrycja Kielb’s work is helping to advance molecular science research in the TRA Matter.
Organoids and Chemical Biology
Jun. Prof. Dr. Elena Reckzeh
Elena Reckzeh is combining chemical biology and organoid research in order to further expand the “Construction” strand of the research profile in the TRA Life and Health.
Transfer: Transdisciplinary research and impact
The funding secured since 2019 has been channeled into developing and expanding the TRAs as the mainstay of the University of Bonn’s research profile. They are already having an impact not only within the University itself but also in wider society, in technology and in the political sphere.
Science Festival - where visitors young and old can find out all about the TRA
Representatives of the six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) were on hand to introduce themselves and their work at the 2023 Science Festival, which was all about “hands-on science for everybody.”
Wissenschaftsfestival
Bild © Universität Bonn / YouTube
More Than Technology: Energy as a Societal Responsibility
As part of the Science Year 2025 “Future Energies,” the Transdisciplinary Research Areas, in cooperation with partners from the University of Bonn, hosted the event “Dialogue on Deck: Rethinking Future Energies – Resources, Responsibility, Society” aboard the MS Wissenschaft. In a truly transdisciplinary setting, experts from the fields of economics, anthropology, and agricultural sciences discussed energy beyond purely technical dimensions—highlighting its social, cultural, and ecological implications.
Dialogue on Deck 2025: Rethinking Future Energies – Resources, Responsibility, Society
Bild © Uni Bonn
Contact
Dr. Ines Heuer
Dr. Eva Drews