The University of Bonn is inviting all its new students to the traditional First-Semester Students’ Welcome on October 8, 2025. With a mix of information, advice and opportunities to meet people, the University of Excellence is putting on a varied networking program for its new students.

The International Center for Comparative Theology and Social Issues (CTSI) and the Faculty of Catholic Theology at the University of Bonn have set up a new master’s degree program. Delivered in English, the international Master of Comparative Theological Studies program is designed for theology, religious studies or cultural studies graduates and teaches the basics of comparative theology, covering Islam, Christianity and Judaism. It focuses on topics that are key to successful co-existence in societies with an increasingly complex religious and cultural fabric. The new degree program begins in winter semester 2025/26, and interested students have until September 25 to apply. 

A special exhibition is being put on to mark the 55th Deutscher Historikertag, Germany’s general conference for historians, which is taking place in Bonn. As well as offering some out-of-the-ordinary insights into the history of history studies at the University of Bonn, it also boasts a truly unique venue, namely the bunker next door to the Department of History at Konviktstraße 11. From September 17 to October 31, 2025, it will host the exhibition entitled “Von Intriganten, Pedanten und Biergenies – Schlaglichter auf die Bonner Geschichtswissenschaft im Wandel der Zeit” (“Of Schemers, Pedants and Beer-Fueled Geniuses—Shining Spotlights on History in Bonn over Time”). The space, which is generally not open to the public, can only be visited as part of a guided tour. Anyone who is interested can email unimuseum@uni-bonn.de to book a tour.

Can small changes in the design of food delivery apps encourage people to choose more climate-friendly meals? Researchers at the Institute for Food and Resource Economics (ILR) at the University of Bonn investigated this question. Their findings have now been published in the journal “Appetite.”

How is the use of artificial intelligence going to shape research, teaching and administration at the University of Bonn? AI expert Professor Christian Bauckhage, Professor of Computer Science at the University of Bonn, Co-Director of the Lamarr Institute and Speaker for the University-wide AI Think Tank, explains how systems of this kind are already transforming people’s day-to-day work and why the power of human judgment is set to become ever more important in the future. 

As the Earth moves through space, it wobbles slightly. A team of researchers from the Technical University of Munich (TUM) and the University of Bonn has now succeeded in measuring these fluctuations in the Earth's axis using a completely new method – until now, possible only through complex radio astronomy. The team used the high-precision ring laser at TUM's geodetic observatory in Wettzell, Bavaria. The results of the 250-day experiment have now been published in the renowned journal Science Advances. 

The University of Bonn has yet another good reason to celebrate as three of its researchers have been awarded an ERC Starting Grant worth €1.5 million each. This European Research Council (ERC) grant program is designed to support early-career researchers. The economist Assistant Professor Amelie Schiprowski, the computer scientist Professor Lucie Flek and the evolutionary biologist Dr. Moritz Lürig will use the funding to progress their own research projects over the next five years.

For many young people, embarking on a degree program at a university is a big step—even more so if they are also coming from a refugee or migration background. The University of Bonn runs a special grant program just for these students and doctoral candidates that offers them financial support as well as networking opportunities and career prospects. Two recipients of these grants explain how Pathways to Research is helping them.