Research and Study at the University of Excellence in Bonn

The University of Bonn has further advanced in the latest Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking 2025, now ranking 89th worldwide—up two slots since last year. In Germany it improved as well, climbing one slot to fifth place, in the company of the country’s other leading institutions like Technical University of Munich, the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich, the University of Heidelberg and Humboldt University of Berlin.

We often only realize how important our sense of smell is when it is no longer there: food hardly tastes good, or we no longer react to dangers such as the smell of smoke. Researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the University of Bonn and the University of Aachen have investigated the neuronal mechanisms of human odor perception for the first time. Individual nerve cells in the brain recognize odors and react specifically to the smell, the image and the written word of an object, for example a banana. The results of this study close a long-standing knowledge gap between animal and human odor research and have now been published in the renowned journal "Nature".

“It's really difficult and depressing to keep reading and researching about how people and ecosystems are suffering from climate change,” says Prof. Dr. Lisa Schipper from the Department of Geographical Development Research at the University of Bonn. As a scientist, she was involved in the Sixth Assessment Report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change (IPCC). Now, in a commentary in the renowned journal “Nature Climate Change”, she argues that science also needs discussions about emotions. We asked Lisa Schipper about this. 

International Days 2024 is all about excellent early-career researchers, international partnerships and dialogue on how to meet global challenges. In addition to the traditional ceremony for the state awards and the DAAD Prize, the Vice Rectorate for International Affairs invites the public to attend a host of info events, talks and workshops. One major highlight will be a keynote lecture by Harvard Professor Homi K. Bhabha, who is an internationally recognized cultural theory scholar.