Transdisciplinary Research Areas
Spaces for innovation in research and teaching—this is what the six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) at the University of Bonn provide. They are where top researchers work together across faculty boundaries on key academic, scientific, technological and societal issues relevant to our future.
The six TRAs
Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems
How do complex systems work? How mathematical models come together with observational methods, computer-aided simulations and creative flair.
Building Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions
How do the various components that matter is made from interact with one another? How do complex structures form on completely different length scales?
Life and Health
Understanding the complexities of life and coming up with new strategies for healthcare. Find out more about the TRA Life and Health.
Individuals, Institutions and Societies
Studying complex relationships between individuals, institutions and societies and developing new perspectives on micro- and macrophenomena.
Past Worlds and Modern Questions. Cultures Across Time and Space
We promote and connect up research into the prerequisites for modern societies, the conditions under which they develop and the processes by which heritage is negotiated.
Innovation and Technology for Sustainable Futures
The TRA Sustainable Futures explores institutional, research-based and technology-driven innovations for promoting sustainability.
Rainforest protection is not only good for biodiversity and the climate – it also noticeably improves the health of humans who live in the corresponding regions. This is the conclusion drawn by a current study by the University of Bonn and the Universidade Federal de Minas Gerais in Brazil. In this, the researchers show that measures to combat slash-and-burn techniques significantly reduce the concentration of particulate matter in the air. The number of hospital stays and deaths due to respiratory diseases thus also decreases. The results have been published now in the journal Nature Communications, Earth & Environment.
The University of Bonn has recruited a pioneer in astrochemistry in the shape of Professor Serena Viti, who has been appointed designated Hertz Professor in the Matter Transdisciplinary Research Area. The aim of her Hertz Professorship, which she intends to take up in 2026, will be to establish astrochemistry at the University of Excellence in order to build a structural bridge between astrophysics and chemistry. Professor Viti is currently working at Leiden University but will already be spending time researching and teaching at the University of Bonn over the next two years in order to establish the research field for her Hertz Professorship.
Immune cells are capable of detecting infections just like a sniffer dog, using special sensors known as Toll-like receptors, or TLRs for short. But what signals activate TLRs, and what is the relationship between the scale and nature of this activation and the substance being detected? In a recent study, researchers from the University of Bonn and the University Hospital Bonn (UKB) used an innovative method to answer these questions. The approach that they took might help to speed up the search for drugs to combat infectious diseases, cancer, diabetes or dementia. Their findings have been published in the journal “Nature Communications.”
The University of Bonn has been successful twice in the funding line for the Synergy Grants from the European Research Council (ERC) with other partners. The GravNet project is building a global detector network to search for high-frequency gravitational waves. The CeLEARN project coordinated by the Max Planck Institute for Neurobiology of Behavior – CAESAR aims to decode how single cells learn from their environment. The ERC uses Synergy Grants to support research groups in which different skills, knowledge, and resources are brought together in order to tackle ambitious research questions. The projects will receive several million euros of support in the next six years.
TRA2 prize takes interfaculty cooperation to a new level
The ‘TRA² - Transdisciplinary Research Prize’ of the University of Bonn honours highly innovative projects in which at least two different TRAs of the University of Bonn work together on relevant questions about future issues. For the first time, the six Transdisciplinary Research Areas have jointly announced the TRA² Prize in 2024. The successful applications will receive funding of up to 50,000 euros as start-up funding for joint research.
The transdisciplinary research projects are dedicated to the following topics and questions:
What happens when you pursue an important goal but lose sight of other important aspects in the process? For example, when companies optimise their profits but forget about sustainability goals?
How do microorganisms in the human mouth adapt to changes in diet and lifestyle?
And what do we do when tumours in breast or prostate cancer become resistant to common drugs such as mitoxantrone?
Would you like to find out more? Read the abstracts of the award-winning projects!
Transdisciplinary research - realizing a vision
For over 200 years, the University of Bonn has been synonymous with top-level research that has benefited teachers, seasoned researchers and those just embarking on their academic careers.
TRAs and their role in the Excellence Strategy
The University of Bonn’s success in the Excellence contest is down partly to the strong track record of discipline-specific research in its various faculties, which laid the foundations for six Clusters of Excellence—more than at any other university in Germany. However, the University’s six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) also make a significant contribution to its Excellence Strategy. The funding secured since 2019 has been channeled into developing and expanding the TRAs as the mainstay of the University of Bonn’s research profile. They are already having an impact not only within the University itself but also in wider society, in technology and in the political sphere.
Science Festival - where visitors young and old can find out all about the TRA
Representatives of the six Transdisciplinary Research Areas (TRAs) were on hand to introduce themselves and their work at the 2023 Science Festival, which was all about “hands-on science for everybody.”
Wissenschaftsfestival
New spaces for inter- and transdisciplinary approaches
The basic idea behind setting up the TRAs was that inter- and transdisciplinary approaches will be the only way to meet many of the challenges that the future holds. Besides a strong track record of discipline-specific research, which at universities is traditionally organized along faculty lines, new structural spaces were to be created to encourage transdisciplinary approaches and give them a framework.
The TRAs are now an integral part of the innovative research culture embraced at the University of Bonn. They provide spaces for innovation in research and teaching that are tackling the interdisciplinary scientific, technological and societal challenges of the future. Creating new network structures is helping to promote efforts to set up and expand new research areas that raise the University’s profile. Over the years, therefore, it has developed six areas in which it now boasts outstanding quality. Each TRA is also linked to a Cluster of Excellence at the University of Bonn.
Openness and cooperation
The TRAs are open to all researchers active at the University of Bonn and its partner institutions who are able to contribute to the specific topics being studied in them. The support that they give to academic and scientific partnerships also makes the TRAs incubators for new collaborative projects, ideas for which are discussed in workshops and lecture series. Financial support has already been secured for new research ideas, open-science initiatives and teaching projects as well as the groundwork for new Collaborative Research Centers and Research Training Groups. Conducting transparent research into and in dialogue with society is a key pillar of the University’s new research profile.
Named after the University of Bonn physicist Heinrich Hertz (1857–1894), the Hertz Chairs lie at the heart of our efforts to promote excellence. They are filled with researchers of international repute who are leading lights in their field of expertise and burnish the profile of our Transdisciplinary Research Areas. These professors are based centrally within the University and given the freedom to establish new areas of research, forge links between disciplines and inject significant fresh momentum where they see fit.
Artificial Intelligence and Neurosciences
Prof. Dr. Dr. Dominik Bach
Within the TRA Life and Health, Dominik Bach is establishing a major new area of focus where the neurosciences meet psychiatry and computer science.
Innovation for Planetary Health Prof. Dr. Ina Danquah
Ina Danquah investigates the interactions between climate change, nutrition and health. She is Hertz Chair within the TRA Sustainable Futures.
Life Ethics
Prof. Dr. Christiane Woopen
Within the TRA Individuals and Societies, Christiane Woopen is studying four dynamics of our time that are interacting on a systemic level— technologization, economization, ecologization and globalization—as well as the associated processes of transformation.
Mathematics, Modelling and Simulation of Complex Systems Prof. Dr. László Végh
László Végh and his research team investigates algorithmic questions at the interface of mathematical optimization, computer science, and economics.
Clausius Professorship
The Clausius Professorship was established to mark the 200th anniversary of the University of Bonn physicist Rudolph Clausius (1822–1888). It was awarded to a particularly exceptional early-career researcher from the Blocks of Matter and Fundamental Interactions Transdisciplinary Research Area.
Asst. Prof. Dr. Lena Funcke
Lena Funcke is studying the development of new models and computer-aided calculation methods to tackle the questions that lie at the heart of particle physics.
Supporting researchers at all stages of their careers is one of the main aims of the University of Bonn in its role as a University of Excellence. This is why the Argelander Professorships (named after the University of Bonn astronomer Friedrich Wilhelm August Argelander, 1799–1875) were set up. These tenure track professorships are specifically intended to help outstanding early-career researchers and enable them to explore and further develop their research interests at the interface between individual disciplines and beyond subject and faculty boundaries.
Integrated System Modeling for Sustainability Transitions
Asst. Prof. Dr. Wolfram Barfuss
Wolfram Barfuss, Argelander Professor in TRA Sustainable Futures, strives to reshape human-environment modeling to identify critical leverage points for sustainability transitions.
Critical Museums and Heritage Studies
Asst. Prof. Dr. Julia Binter
Julia Binter is a member of the Global Heritage Lab in the TRA Present Pasts. Her transcultural research is paving the way for new partnerships with the natural sciences and theologies.
Mathematics—Economics and Computer Science
Prof. Dr. Florian Brandl
Florian Brandl’s work in the TRA Modelling and the Hausdorff Center for Mathematics combines methods and approaches taken from economic theory, mathematics and computer science.
Biohybrid Research
Asst. Prof. Dr. Patrycja Kielb
By focusing on “bio-spectro-electrochemistry,” Patrycja Kielb’s work is helping to advance molecular science research in the TRA Matter.
Sustainability and Environmental Transformation Law
Asst. Prof. Dr. Jacqueline Lorenzen
Jacqueline Lorenzen’s research in the TRA Individuals and Societies is focused on legal issues connected with sustainable urban development.
Environmental Economics, Sustainability and Inequality
Asst. Prof. Dr. Julia Mink
Julia Mink is conducting research at the interface between environmental and healthcare economics in the TRA Individuals and Societies.
Organoids and Chemical Biology
Asst. Prof. Dr. Elena Reckzeh
Elena Reckzeh is combining chemical biology and organoid research in order to further expand the “Construction” strand of the research profile in the TRA Life and Health.
Organoid Biology
Asst. Prof. Dr. Ana Ivonne Vazquez-Armendariz
With her expertise in human lung organoids, Ana Ivonne Vazquez-Armendariz is adding a new dimension to the research profile in the TRA Life and Health.
Contact
Dr. Ines Heuer
Dr. Eva Drews