2019 was a special year for the University of Bonn, as it became a university of excellence. The Rectorate's annual report, which has now been published, gives an overview of the "road to excellence" and what else has happened.

The University of Bonn Faculty of Medicine has awarded an honorary doctorate to renowned Australia-based immunologist Prof. Dr. Jacques Francis Albert Pierre Miller. The award ceremony was conducted online due to the corona pandemic, held as part of the Digital Cluster Science Days 2020 organized by the ImmunoSensation Cluster of Excellence2.

The Director of the International Office of the University of Bonn, Dr. Kai Sicks, will be the new Secretary General of the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD). He will take over his new office in spring 2021 from Dr. Dorothea Rüland.

A genetic disposition that plays a role in the development of the heart in the embryo also appears to play a key role in the human immune system. This is shown by a recent study led by the University of Bonn. When the gene is not active enough, the immune defense system undergoes characteristic changes, causing it to lose its effectiveness. Doctors speak of an aging immune system, as a similar effect can often be observed in older people. In the medium term, the results may contribute to reduce these age-related losses. The study is published in the journal Nature Immunology.

Long neck, small head and a live weight of several tons - with this description you could have tracked down the Plateosaurus in Central Europe about 220 million years ago. Paleontologists at the University of Bonn have now described for the first time an almost complete skeleton of a juvenile Plateosaurus and discovered that it looked very similar to its parents even at a young age. The fact that Plateosaurus showed a largely fully developed morphology at an early age could have important implications for how the young animals lived and moved around. The young Plateosaurus, nicknamed "Fabian", was discovered in 2015 at the Frick fossil site in Switzerland and is exhibited in the local dinosaur museum. The study was published in the journal "Acta Palaeontologica Polonica".

The University of Bonn is one of the 200 most influential university brands in the world - this is the result of the current World Reputation Ranking of the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE).

With the Halloween outlook poor this year—canceled for many—more people have started thinking about how this scary holiday got started in the first place. A former student of Celtic Studies at the University of Bonn, today Dr. Michael Klevenhaus is Director of the German Center for Gaelic Language & Culture, or “Acadamaidh na Gàidhlig sa' Ghearmailt” in Bonn. Thus University Communications sought out Dr. Klevenhaus for an interview to find out about the origins and history of the holiday.

Those who are more patient earn and save more on average. Institutions and campaigns such as World Savings Day encourage this from an early age. Researchers of the Cluster of Excellence ECONtribute: Markets & Public Policy of the Universities of Bonn and Cologne have evaluated data on patient behavior from 76 countries.