Newsportal

Located on Scharnhorststraße, and sitting behind unremarkable walls and along tidy corridors, the staff in the central examinations offices perform invaluable work. They offer support for undergraduates and PhD students at the University of Münster, from the first to the last examinations they take.

After its premiere last year, the University of Münster will host a “Falling Walls Lab” in 2026 as well. After a successful application, young talents can present their idea, research or initiative on 11 September at the REACH – EUREGIO Start-up Center. The winner will travel to Berlin in early November for the international finale, the “Falling Walls Science Summit”.

Fossilised wood from the Kyffhäuser has proved to be a previously unknown geoarchive. Tiny quartz crystals have preserved the temperatures and depths to which the tree trunks were exposed over the course of 300 million years. With the help of these inclusions, a research team led by the University of Münster has been able to reconstruct the development of our continent.

The University of Münster will soon see a change in management. The University Electoral Assembly overwhelmingly confirmed the appointment of Prof Dr Ulrike Weyland as vice-rector, and elected Prof Dr Sven G. Meuth and Prof Dr Benjamin Risse as new vice-rectors. On 1 October, Prof Dr Susanne Menzel-Riedl will replace Prof Dr Johannes Wessels as the new University Rector.

Our youngest members of society are becoming regular users of digital media which can confront them with problematic role models. The international and interdisciplinary research network “G+Media” is investigating to what extent educational media contributes to discrimination so that it can counteract it at an early stage.

The battery recycling industry must massively expand its capacity and cope with the fact that the complexity of the batteries being returned is increasing significantly. This is shown by a new study involving researchers from the Institute of Business Chemistry at the University of Münster.

A research team led by Prof. Christos Gatsogiannis at the University of Münster has gained new insights into the workings of a cellular transporter — a protein essential for pathogenic fungi to absorb vital nutrients. These findings could contribute to the development of new therapeutic strategies against fungal infections in the long term.

Researchers led by Professor Iris Finkemeier from the Institute of Plant Biology and Biotechnology discovered a specific chemical mark in the ‘histone code’ of thale cress that is responsible for adaptation to salt stress.

For more than 100 years, scholars had assumed that the rulers of the ancient Assyrian Empire in the Near East, from 1000 to 609 BC, were listed in full in a king list. Assyriologists Dr. Alexander Edmonds (University of Münster) and Prof. Eckart Frahm (Yale University) have now been able to prove that there were three further kings, who were almost completely erased from history.

A team led by chemist Professor Frank Glorius from the Institute of Organic Chemistry has developed a new light-driven reaction sequence that enables the synthesis of complex three-dimensional molecular structures.

In Münster it rains, or the bells ring, as the saying goes. How much truth is there in this? In this interview, micrometeorologist Dr Toprak Aslan from the “Biosphere-Atmosphere Interaction” research group explains the typical weather in Münster and what practical insights can be drawn from it.

In the event of a severe heart attack, immature immune cells are released into the bloodstream from the bone marrow. A research team led by the University of Münster has demonstrated that the maturity level of neutrophils can be used to determine the short-term risk of death, and this can be assessed through a simple blood test.