Two Collaborative Research Centers (CRCs)—Transregio (TRR) 224 “Economic Perspectives on Societal Challenges” and TRR 228 “Future Rural Africa”—have secured four more years’ funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and are thus set to enter their third funding period. The first project, CRC-TRR 224, sees researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Mannheim collaborating to open up new economic avenues for some of the challenges facing society, while the second, CRC-TRR 228, involves researchers from the Universities of Bonn and Cologne working on shaping the future in rural Africa.

Finding somewhere to live at the start of the semester remains a major challenge for many students in Bonn. Even though the winter semester has already been under way a few weeks, many young people are still hunting for an affordable room. This is especially true of international students, who often arrive just before the semester starts and have hardly any time to mount a detailed search. The University of Bonn, the Studierendenwerk Bonn and the General Students’ Committee (AStA) are therefore issuing an urgent joint appeal to all private landlords and landladies in the city, asking them to offer up their available accommodation to students. A new online housing platform has also been launched for this purpose.

Only ten teams nationwide will receive exclusive access to the European exascale supercomputer. With the HoMe project, AI research in Bonn is sending a strong signal in the fields of vision, robotics, and generative AI.

The Shanghai Global Ranking of Academic Subjects for 2025 was published yesterday and puts the University in the top 10 in Germany for 12—over half—of the subjects assessed. In five of these subjects, it has even made it into the top five.

Dr. Varun Venkataramani of the Faculty of Medicine at Heidelberg University and Dr. Niklas Klümper of the University Hospital Bonn have been awarded the Lisec Artz Prize for their outstanding cancer research. The University of Bonn Foundation and the University of Bonn Faculty of Medicine presented the awards to the two researchers at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) as part of the Cluster Science Days event held by the ImmunoSensation² Cluster of Excellence. The prize is worth a total of 15,000 euros. 

The University of Bonn has performed outstandingly in the latest QS Sustainability Rankings for 2026. It has improved significantly on last year’s already impressive showing, climbing to 57th in the world and second in Germany. Compiled by analysts at Quacquarelli Symonds (QS), the rankings assess the work that universities are doing to tackle the most urgent environmental and social problems facing the world.

Alumni and donor association Universitätsgesellschaft Bonn has awarded its newly created “UGB Transfer Prize” for the first time. Three University of Bonn transfer projects were recognized for how they apply scientific findings in remarkable fashion to help meet societal challenges. At a Winter Soirée award ceremony held at University Club Bonn, the UGB disbursed a total of 29,000 euros in prize money for impactful knowledge transfer projects, exceptional doctoral theses and student activism.

Formally known as the European University of Brain and Technology, NeurotechEU is a consortium of top European universities formed to achieve advancements in teaching, research and innovation in the field of neurotechnology. Being a member of this alliance underscores the leading position the University of Bonn occupies internationally in one of the most dynamic research fields of our time. At the recent conference held in Spain, the Medical University of Innsbruck was officially inaugurated as the latest alliance member.