The Bonn Region of Science and Humanities also has an international character, mainly due to institutions from science and research as well as science organizations with strong international exchange such as the German Research Foundation (DFG), the German Rectors' Conference (HRK), the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD) and the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation (AvH). The German Development Institute (DIE) operates at the interface between research and development cooperation. The Bonn International Centre for Conflict Studies (BICC) is the only non-university institute of peace and conflict research in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia.
In September 2018, the University of Bonn was successful in winning six - also internationally positioned - clusters of excellence. In July 2019, it was then awarded the title of "University of Excellence" and has thus established itself among the strongest research universities in Germany. In the future, the university's scientific networks all over the world as well as the topics of equal opportunities, diversity, sustainability and family-friendly study and working conditions are to be expanded even further.
The University of Bonn is placing a strong focus with the Internationalization Strategy 2020: a comprehensive strategic internationalization is planned that will involve all areas of the University of Bonn. Overarching goals include establishing its top position in research in international comparison, further structural and content-related internationalization of studies and teaching, and the expansion of strategic partnerships for research, studies and teaching. In order to achieve these goals, the University of Bonn promotes, for example, the expansion of global cooperation for international profile building, including with universities in the so-called Global South, with its own funding line.
In order to better network science and international institutions, the city and the University of Bonn signed the Memorandum of Understanding in 2018, in which the intensive cooperation was recorded and strategic fields of action were defined. These range thematically from internationality, UN and sustainability issues to urban development and knowledge and technology transfer and are supervised by the city's Science Department. The aim is for the city and the university to support each other in internationalization projects in order to benefit even more from their internationality and their involvement in global challenges.
Networks such as BION, the interdisciplinary association of internationally oriented biodiversity research in Bonn, or the Bonn Network for Disaster Risk Reduction and Management, build further bridges to the fields of work of the United Nations. In order to further expand cooperation between the University of Bonn and its faculties as well as ZEF, DIE, BICC, UNU-EHS and the Bonn-Rhine-Sieg University of Applied Sciences, these institutions founded the Bonn Alliance for Sustainability Research at the World Climate Conference in Bonn on November 15, 2017. The regional research alliance aims to further strengthen research in the field of sustainable development and global change. It contributes to the closer interlinking and expansion of the interdisciplinary competence in this field that exists in Bonn. To this end, the Innovation Campus (ICB) was established at the University of Bonn, which bundles the top scientific competencies in sustainability research available in Bonn and, with new components, expands them into a unique global science center. The Innovation Campus Bonn's research is focused on three areas: Digitization and artificial intelligence, mobility and migration, and bioeconomy. It offers a platform for experts who bring together their different ideas, expertise and perspectives on specific topics to work on sustainability issues across different disciplines. One example: The United Nations University - Institute for Environment and Human Security (UNU-EHS) and the German Development Institute (DIE) organize workshops on the interactions between climate change and migration under the umbrella of the Innovation Campus Bonn to discuss political challenges and find solutions.
In order to optimize cooperation with the new location of the European Center for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts, the University of Bonn, the University of Cologne and Forschungszentrum Jülich have founded a joint Center for Earth System Observation and Computational Analysis (CESOC) in fall 2020. This will create an internationally visible focal point in the Rhineland to globally observe and comprehensively understand the Earth system and predict changes.
The international location and the Bonn international dialogue platform are therefore no empty words. As one of the most important European science regions, Bonn is well on the way to becoming, together with a variety of internationally active partners, a German center of excellence for sustainable topics that will determine our future. 25 years of UN Bonn – that means many successful steps towards a sustainable future and, above all, many strong alliances for this global goal!