Newsportal

The Senate of the University of Münster has decided unanimously that the University should promote a critical, public debate on Kaiser Wilhelm II, after whom the University is named. The basis for this decision is the final report submitted by an eight-strong taskforce which the University had set up in October 2018.

The German Research Foundation (DFG) will be providing 6.5 million euros to fund the new Collaborative Research Centre (CRC) “Geometry: Deformations and Rigidity” at the Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science. The existing CRC 1009 “Breaking Barriers – Immune cells and pathogens at cell/matrix barriers” will continue to receive funding amounting to more than 10 million euros.

In her doctoral thesis, political scientist Dr. Christine Prokopf investigated how politics in Germany deals with disasters and looked at whether there has been any change in the approach, from managing a catastrophe, once it is there, to reducing the risks of it, preventing it in advance. In an interview, she discusses her results and their importance in the corona crisis.

In cells, enzymes drive biochemical metabolic processes. In biotechnology, they are in demand as catalysts for the production of chemical products. Researchers at Münster University identified an enzyme that, when illuminated with blue light, initiates a reaction that was previously unknown in enzymatics. The study was published in "Nature Communications".

In painstaking research, historian Dr. Daniel Stracke, a research assistant at the Institute of Comparative Urban History (Institut für vergleichende Städtegeschichte) has rediscovered the Banner of Péronne, which disappeared in the First World War. Today, it is a matter for the French courts.

Whether it is press releases, posts, reports in the university newspaper, podcasts, blog entries, lectures or events for children and school students: in all its diversity, science communication has long been an integral part of knowledge transfer at universities, including the University of Münster.

For the Cluster of Excellence "Religion and Politics", the corona pandemic poses particular challenges for young researchers. At the Collaborative Research Center TRR 170, which is concerned with the late accretions onto terrestrial planets, some scientists have to keep an eye on important laboratory experiments even during the corona crisis.

Which are the research institutions with the highest number of high-ranking publications in the natural and life sciences? This question is addressed once a year by the renowned journal "Nature". In the recently published "Nature Index Global 2020", the University of Münster ranks 126th – and is thus among the five best German universities worldwide.

Laser light that cannot be seen, and sounds that cannot be heard: this combination produces something that is all the more visible – images from inside the body. Photoacoustics is the name of this method, whose purpose is to acoustically record the sounds of molecules. During her PhD thesis, biologist Alexa Hasenbach investigated inflammatory processes.

15 May 1995 saw the ceremonial opening of Netherlands House in the Krameramtshaus building. It brings together the Centre for Netherlands Studies, the Institute of Dutch Philology and the Netherlands House Library, and in the past 25 years it has achieved much to advance good neighbourly relations between the Netherlands and Germany.

Münster University has many years of experience with Citizen Science projects. One project deals with the history of the old railway tunnel in Lengerich. The research project was explored in 2011 as part of the Innovation Office’s "Expedition Münsterland" and scientifically processed by the Department of History of Münster University and the Villa ten Hompel historical site together with citizens.

At the end of 2022, the "Research Fab Battery Cells" is scheduled to go into operation under the leadership of the MEET battery research centre of Münster University. The developments should have been presented at the Hannover Messe (Hanover Fair). Instead, all interested people can now get an overview of the current status of the project on a new website of the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft.