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Joint press release of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
Berlin’s Higher Education Institutions Overcome First Hurdle
Friday, 29. September 2017
Media Information No. 158/2017
Nine research projects asked to submit full proposals as part of the German government’s Excellence Strategy
Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin have overcome the first hurdle in the competition for the Excellence Strategy jointly organized by the German federal and state governments now that a positive advance decision has been made in favor of the cluster outlines they had submitted. With the announcement made by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Research Council (WR) on September 29, 2017, a total of nine research projects in Berlin can enter the decisive round.
The scholars and scientists involved are now invited to present their projects in full to the international panels of experts. All full proposals must be submitted by February 21, 2018. Decisions regarding the projects to be funded are to be announced in September 2018. Successful clusters will receive funding for two seven-year terms starting in 2019. The three above-named universities in Berlin, Charité, and Berlin University of the Arts had submitted 16 proposals in all.
The presidents of the universities in Berlin that had applied – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Technische Universität Berlin – and the Chief Executive Officer of Charité all agree: “The successful performance of these four institutions in Berlin in the preselection for the competition is proof of the strength of our scholars and scientists, particularly in the fields of innovative and forward-looking research. This success reinforces our commitment to continue to join forces strategically and pursue our aim of proceeding together in the Excellence Strategy. The cooperative research relationships that have been established between us for decades serve as the basis for this.”
Contestations of the Liberal Script (SCRIPTS)
Global Challenges for
Liberal Democracy as a Model of Organization
When the
Cold War ended, Western-liberal democracy and market economy seemed to
have emerged as the most successful model for social development. 25
years later, the liberal order faces fundamental global as well as
domestic challenges, among them Islamist terrorism as well as
authoritarian and illiberal states. Within Western societies, mostly
right-wing populist movements proclaim to accept liberal values while
contesting their content at the same time. The proposed Excellence
Cluster “Contestations of the Liberal Script” (SCRIPTS) shall
examine the current controversies over the liberal model of order from
broad historical, global, and comparative perspectives. In addition to
Freie Universität Berlin as the host institution,
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, the Berlin Social Science Center
(WZB), and five other academic institutions in Berlin are involved in
the initiative. SCRIPTS draws on the superb expertise of the social
sciences and comparative area studies available in Berlin, including
Western and non-Western perspectives, quantitative and qualitative
methods, generalizing theories, and local bodies of knowledge. To
enhance the multiplicity of perspectives, institutional partnerships
with universities in all regions of the world have been developed. At
the same time, the initiative seeks to work closely with local
political and cultural institutions in the German capital.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Tanja Börzel
(Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Dr. Michael Zürn (Freie
Universität Berlin/Wissenschaftszentrum Berlin, WZB)
Applicant university: FU
Berlin
Matters of Activity: Image Space Material
A
New Culture of Material
In the interdisciplinary cluster
“Matters of Activity,” researchers from more than 40 disciplines
will investigate and design images, spaces and materials as active
structures: The cluster will establish foundations for a new culture
of materiality, in which the material’s structure determines its
active function. Even in the digital age, traditional processes, such
as filtering, weaving, and cutting play a vital role in generating
dynamic visualizations and materializations. Thus, techniques of
filtering materials and information, the woven structures of fiber
materials, and robot-assisted surgical cutting will be exemplary
research topics of the cluster. In this material and symbolically
highly relevant field, the analog and the digital interconnect as a
model for future principles of the practice and theory of research. As
equal partners the humanities, natural sciences, and design
disciplines will combine experimental and creative approaches with
historical analysis in order to develop theoretical and practical
solutions for the major challenges of our time. “Matters of
Activity” connects the heritage of 200 years of
Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and 100 years of Bauhaus in an
interdisciplinary laboratory based at the Hermann von Helmholtz Center
for Cultural Techniques. The new cluster builds on the cluster
“Image Knowledge Gestaltung,” which started off in 2012 and since
then has systematically established interdisciplinary structures.
Research and teaching will be provided with an interactive social
platform through the Humboldt Labor in the Humboldt Forum. Including
numerous research facilities, design academies, collections, museums,
and an internationally leading design- and start-up scene, Berlin is
an excellent location for such a project.
Designated spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Wolfgang
Schäffner (Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Applicant
university: HU Berlin
MATH+ The Berlin Mathematics Research Center
The Power of
Mathematics
Mathematics is the art of solving problems
based on the power of abstraction. As such it has a key role in
exploiting the opportunities of the digital revolution, which is
changing our world dramatically: Mathematics is needed for taming
complexity and uncovering hidden principles, which in turn enable
deeper insights and improved predictions. This, however, poses a
multitude of new challenges to mathematical abstractions, methods, and
problem solving. The Berlin mathematics community – at the three
Berlin universities FU, HU, and TU Berlin, as well as at the research
institutes WIAS and ZIB – is joining its forces to build MATH+, a
cross-institutional and trans-disciplinary research center designed to
take up these challenges. MATH+ will be founded on Berlin's
established strengths in mathematical modeling, simulation, and
optimization. With a self-renewing mathematical agenda, MATH+ will aim
at expanding these strengths and at the same time develop novel
strategies for exploring and exploiting complex data and turning them
into innovations with impact in technology and society, for example in
the life sciences, energy management, and opto-electronics. Due to
their transformation by digitization, a wide variety of fields that
previously eluded mathematical now reveal opportunities for
cross-fertilization with mathematics: MATH+ has the ambition to play a
pivotal role in these processes, together with top-class Berlin
experts and institutions for example in medicine, social sciences, and
humanities. Within the innovative MATH+ Topic Development Lab, truly
new mathematical topics will be advanced, stimulated also by current
cooperations and application fields. MATH+ builds on the strengths of
established structures in Berlin: on the one hand on MATHEON, founded
as a DFG Research Center in 2002, with its successful concept of
cooperative, application-oriented fundamental research, which crosses
the boundaries between institutions and disciplines, and between the
worlds of economics, society and the public. On the other hand, it
builds on the Berlin Mathematical School, which contributes a broad
mathematical spectrum as a Graduate School within the Excellence
Initiative since 2006.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Günter M. Ziegler
(Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Michael Hintermüller
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin), Prof. Martin Skutella (Technische
Universität Berlin)
Applicant universities: FU
Berlin, HU Berlin, TU
Berlin
NeuroCure: Comprehensive approaches to neurological and psychiatric disorders – from mechanisms to interventions
Understanding and Treating Brain
Disease
In recent decades neurological and psychiatric
disorders have become an enormous burden on society. Searching for new
ways to understand such disorders and develop effective therapies is
the objective of the Cluster of Excellence NeuroCure. One of the
Cluster’s priorities is to improve the overall translation process,
i.e. more efficient transfer of research findings into clinical
application. In order to tackle this challenging task, many excellent
neuroscientists and clinical researchers have been recruited in recent
years and structures that support translational research have been
established. The NeuroCure Clinical Research Center (NCRC), which
provides support to scientists conducting clinical studies, should be
highlighted in particular here. The focus of the next funding period
is on interdisciplinary cooperation projects, which examine
physiological processes and pathophysiological changes over the entire
lifespan, i.e. from neuronal development to old age. Moreover, the
NCRC’s activities will be supplemented by new, innovative modules,
which will enable scientists to gain access to patients with acute and
severe brain diseases, optimize and accelerate the translation
process, and improve the transparency and predictive power of
research.
Designated spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Dietmar Schmitz
(Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin)
Applicant
universities: FU Berlin, HU
Berlin
SCIoI - Science of Intelligence
SCIoI –
Learning to Understand Intelligence
What are the
fundamental laws and principles underlying different forms of
intelligence – whether artificial, human, or animal intelligence?
Which universally applicable principles are shared by different forms
of intelligence? The “Science of Intelligence” cluster project
aims to address these research questions. Despite intensive research
in all areas of intelligence, knowledge remains incomplete and
incoherent. The “Science of Intelligence” project aims to fill
these gaps and establish correlations in order to fundamentally
advance the understanding of intelligence. The methodological strategy
of the cluster pursues an innovative, synthetic approach to
intelligence research. All findings, methods, concepts, and theories
from the widest variety of disciplines will be merged in a shared
language. A whole range of scientific, structural, and academic
measures is targeted within the scope of the project in order to
establish an interdisciplinary research program for intelligence. In
parallel a “Master Track Science of Intelligence” exists already,
which conveys necessary knowledge from computer sciences, psychology,
and science theory. The goal is to create a unique research and
training environment in and around Berlin, with great appeal to young
intelligence researchers.
Designated spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Oliver Brock
(Technische Universität Berlin)
Applicant universities:
HU Berlin, TU Berlin
Shaping Space. Converging Art, Science, Technology
Design in the Digital Age
Shaping Space. Converging Art, Science, Technology
is a primary cultural technique in human and material design around
the world and a key competence in design-based disciplines, the arts,
and engineering. Advanced digitalization facilitates new forms of
spatial design of objects, buildings, urban habitats, products, and
services, as well as fundamentally new design strategies. Algorithms
are becoming a key partner in the design process here, and multimodal
interfaces allow for new forms of interaction with spatial designs.
The central goal of the Shaping Space cluster project is to
develop tools for the digital design of space, in which algorithms
guarantee compliance with physical and technical constraints and make
direct reference to the human perception of form, materials,
acoustics, light, and heat, and form the basis for visionary space
with unexpected quality and new functions. Scientists are aiming to
overcome the discrepancy between artistic and engineering design and
the paradigm of singular authorship as a central reference.
Shaping Space is structurally based on the close alliance
between Universität der Künste Berlin and Technische Univeristät
Berlin on the Charlottenburg campus. Joint design labs already exist,
and their operations can be substantially consolidated.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Dr. -Ing Christoph
Gengnagel (Universität der Künste Berlin), Prof. Dr. Stefan
Weinzierl (Technische Universität Berlin)
Applicant
universities: TU Berlin, Universität der Künste
Berlin
Temporal Communities – Doing Literature in a Global Perspective
How Literature Reaches Out through Space
and Time
The Cluster Temporal Communities – Doing
Literature in a Global Perspective aims to create a novel theoretical
and methodological take on literature in a global perspective: a take
that moves beyond the categories of nation and era, conceiving of
literature instead as a transcultural and transtemporal phenomenon in
deep time. Assuming that literature is a fundamentally performative
and intermedial phenomenon, a form of social action taking place in
complex networks of human and non-human agents, the Cluster will study
how literature becomes global through its temporal entanglements.
Introducing the notion of “temporal communities,” the Cluster will
investigate the ways in which literature reaches out through space and
time by establishing extensive transtemporal networks, networks in
which the very notion of literature itself is constantly
re-constituted as it interacts with other arts and media, with all
manner of institutions and material conditions. “Temporal
Communities” thus are the sites where the multifarious entanglements
that literary phenomena enter into resonate in and through time,
sometimes even spanning millennia. Situated within a vibrant network
of international academic partners and local collaborators including
universities and libraries as well as museums and literary and
artistic institutions, the Cluster combines an international
fellowship program with a dynamic and flexible platform for small and
medium-sized projects involving early career researchers, established
scholars, and international fellows from all career stages. Supported
in its research by a powerful digital humanities hub, the Cluster
plans to involve a wider audience in its activities, reaching out
beyond the confines of academia as it actively participates in
Berlin’s literary and cultural scene.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Anita
Traninger, Prof. Dr. Andrew Johnston (Freie Universität Berlin)
Applicant university: FU
Berlin
Topoi. Stability and Instability in Ancient Civilizations
A New Way of Understanding Pre-modern
Societies
The Cluster of Excellence Topoi. Stability and
Instability in Ancient Civilizations will explore the driving forces
in processes of constitution and alteration of human societies from
the 10th millennium BCE through to the end of late antiquity. The
Cluster’s fundamental focus on stability and instability will lead
to a new way of understanding pre-modern societies. The proposed
Cluster can build on 10 years of experience in interdisciplinary and
cross-institutional work within the Excellence Cluster Topoi. The
Formation of Space and Knowledge in Ancient Civilizations, which has
made a unique contribution in Berlin’s development as a world-class
location for research in ancient studies. The new Cluster’s work
will also be carried out by researchers from the two applicant
universities – Freie Universität Berlin and Humboldt-Universität
zu Berlin – as well as non-university research institutions and
museums representing more than 30 academic disciplines, most of them
pertaining to ancient studies. The Cluster will integrate researchers
and partners from the natural and social sciences into its work in a
novel way. Topoi. Stability and Instability in Ancient Civilizations
is being proposed jointly by the two universities named above in
cooperation with the Berlin-Brandenburg Academy of Science and
Humanities, the German Archaeological Institute, the Max Planck
Institute for the History of Science, and the Stiftung Preußischer
Kulturbesitz.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Monika
Trümper (Freie Universität Berlin), Prof. Dr. Gerd Graßhoff
(Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin)
Applicant universities:
FU Berlin, HU Berlin
Unifying Systems in Catalysis (UniSysCat)
Sustainability Needs
Catalysis Research
Catalysis is a key scientific and
economic technology, which is indispensable in the transition to a
sustainable chemical production and industry. Whereas individual
catalytic reactions are already clearly understood, rational coupling
of several catalysis steps has so far hardly been feasible and
therefore constitutes a huge challenge. The central scientific
objective of “UniSysCat” is to bring about a paradigm shift in
this area, to facilitate the deciphering, generation, and systemic
control of entire reaction networks in chemical and biological
catalysis. The experimental coupling of catalytic and non-catalytic
processes to an overall system assumes a comprehensive understanding
of all primary steps. UniSysCat intends to build on internationally
recognized research and the extensive arsenal of methods of UniCat,
which has been an Excellence Cluster at Technische Universität Berlin
since 2007. Systems targeted within the framework of UniSysCat include
a variety of coupled catalytic and non-catalytic processes. The
interaction of such processes in terms of space and time is extremely
important for success and control of the overall system. As a result,
the principles that regulate the coupling of these reactions must
first be decoded; for example, transfer - adjusted in terms of time
and space - and activation of substrates or products within the
coupled catalytic systems, or cooperation between different catalytic
centers. Only a comprehensive understanding of such regulatory factors
facilitates controlling and manipulating of catalytic
systems.
Designated spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Matthias
Driess, Prof. Dr. Arne Thomas, Prof. Dr. Peter Hildebrandt (Technische
Universität Berlin)
Applicant university: TU
Berlin
Press contacts:
Goran KrstinPress Spokesperson for the President
Freie Universität Berlin
t: +49 30 838-731 06
Contact [1]
Spokesperson, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin
Head of the Office of Press and Public Relations
t: +49 30 2093-2345
Contact [2]
Press Spokesperson, Technische Universität Berlin
Office for Press, Public Relations and Alumni
t: +49 30 314-23922
Contact [3]
Deputy Press Officer
Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin
t: +49 30 450 570 400
Contact [4]
Note:
We are happy to provide photos for media use to media
representatives upon request.
Link:
http://www.berlin-university-alliance.de [5]
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