Innovations in AI-assisted social sciences, sustainable agriculture and medicine are being funded in the third round of prototyping grants by the Transfer Center enaCom at the University of Bonn. Whether an AI solution for better understanding of scientific communities, a robot that treats weeds differently depending on the species, or a preventive nasal spray - scientists from the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn are developing innovative prototypes for practical challenges of our time. With the prototyping grants, their research findings are prepared for a planned commercialization. The grants with a funding amount of up to €50,000 are regularly awarded by the Transfer Center.
The Universitätsgesellschaft Bonn (UGB) has awarded its prizes for exceptional doctorates and student engagement at its traditional winter soirée. The funding association gave out prize money totaling €19,000 to young academics.
Do primary school children influence the snack purchases of their peers? A study by the University of Bonn reveals that they do indeed. In the presence of friends or classmates, kids are more likely to choose the unhealthier, but also the cheaper option. These findings can support policymaking aimed at motivating primary schoolers to make healthier choices. The study was recently published in the journal Appetite.
Another big success for the University of Bonn in securing grants from the European Research Council (ERC), with three researchers receiving an ERC Consolidator Grant: Professor Jan Hasenauer of the LIMES Institute, Professor Florian I. Schmidt of the Institute for Innate Immunity and Dr. Evgeny Shinder of the Mathematical Institute.
How can reducing greenhouse gas emissions, more efficient energy use and animal welfare be balanced even more successfully in livestock farming in the future? This was the question tackled by a team of authors led by Professor Wolfgang Büscher and Inga Tiemann from the Animal Husbandry Technology Department, which is part of the Institute of Agricultural Engineering at the University of Bonn. Their contributions have now been published alongside those of many other researchers in the VDI Roadmap entitled “Agriculture Technology 2030.”
Professor Michael Hoch, Rector of the University of Bonn, was elected as the new Chair of the German U15 university alliance at its general meeting on November 20, 2023. He was already Deputy Chair, a position he had held since September 2022. The German U15 has also voted to expand its board and has thus elected three new deputy members: Professor Eva Inés Obergfell, Rector of Leipzig University; Professor Karla Pollmann, President of the University of Tübingen; and Professor Günter M. Ziegler, President of Freie Universität Berlin. The new board takes office on November 21, 2023.
Researchers from the University Medical Center Hamburg-Eppendorf and the University Hospital Bonn have demonstrated that certain derivatives of vitamin B2 can alleviate chronic kidney inflammation in mice. Their findings have been published in the journal “Nature Communications.”
Participants in the symposium organized by the Bioeconomy Science Center research alliance, of which the University of Bonn is a member, discussed hot topics and trends ranging from primary production and the development of new products and approaches through to sustainability ratings and societal transformation.