The winners of the 2024 Gender Studies Prize and Maria von Linden Gender Equality Prize were honored at a ceremony last Friday. With these accolades, the University of Bonn Gender Equality Office recognizes superlative final and doctoral theses on gender studies and outstanding commitment to gender equality.

As of January 1, 2026 Professor Cornelia Richter, Chair of the Senate and Professor at the University of Bonn Faculty of Protestant Theology, will be the first female bishop to serve as head of the Evangelical Church of the Augsburg Confession (A.B.) in Austria. An afternoon synod held Friday, May 23, the Theology professor from Bad Goisern was elected to the office of Bishop by an overwhelming majority of convened delegates from all over Austria. University of Bonn Rector Michael Hoch congratulated the Senate Chair on her election.

Although manual small incision cataract surgery (SICS) is widely practiced in countries of the global South, there is no publicly available surgical video dataset for this operation, leaving a critical gap in cataract surgery research. Therefore, an international research team at Sankara Eye Foundation India led by the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) and the University of Bonn has developed the first automated phase detection using AI in SICS. The results of the study have now been published in the renowned journal "Scientific Reports". In parallel, the international research team is now launching a global AI competition at the MICCAI 2025 conference in Daejeon (South Korea), in which AI algorithms for surgical phase detection will compete against each other. The submission deadline is 15th of August 2025.

Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim has received the Tilo Freiherr von Wilmowsky Honorary Award from the “Verbindungsstelle Landwirtschaft-Industrie” (VLI). Since 2012, the association has presented the award annually to individuals who have rendered outstanding services to German agribusiness. The prize has now been awarded at the VLI spring conference in Frankfurt. 

Photovoltaic systems are increasingly being installed not only on roofs but also on open land. This does not always meet with citizens’ approval. What is known as agrivoltaics (Agri-PV), however, is viewed more favorably, as researchers at the University of Bonn have now been able to show. In this case, the solar cells are installed in spaces used for agriculture – such as on pastures or as a canopy over grapevines. According to a survey of almost 2,000 people, this form enjoys much higher acceptance than normal solar parks. The study has been published in the journal “Land Use Policy.”

They are very tiny, but they are a key source of information when it comes to the earth’s evolutionary history: pollen grains are usually no larger than 20 micrometres, or 0.02 millimetres. Using these tiny particles, a research team at Leibniz University Hannover (LUH) and the University of Bonn has managed to pinpoint the earliest emergence of flowering plants, so-called angiosperms, much more precisely. Eudicotyledonous flowering plants, the eudicots, appeared at least two million years earlier than previously known.

The University of Bonn invites you to “Forever Uni Bonn”—the special 20th anniversary of the Universitätsfest. The anniversary party will be held on the Hofgarten lawn on Saturday, July 5, 2025, immediately after this year’s graduation ceremony, aka the Universitätsfest, starting at 4 pm (doors open at 3:30 pm). Special guest: the Cologne pop band Cat Ballou. Admission is free and everyone is welcome to attend!

For a two day visit at the University Hospital Bonn (UKB), the Faculty of Medicine at the University of Bonn welcomed 14 medical students accompanied by the deputy director of the teaching office of the Shanghai East International Medical Centre and a research associate from Tongji University in Shanghai. During a varied program, the guests from China were given an insight into studies and research at the Faculty of Medicine Bonn. The aim of the visit was to discuss specialist topics and future exchange opportunities.