The promise of human rights to protect people everywhere from abuses and injustices and to enable them to live in equal dignity remains unfulfilled for most of the world’s population despite the growth of human rights instruments, institutions, and organizations. Furthermore, skepticism in academic discourses and the open rejection of human rights by many states and political actors are on the rise.

Societies worldwide are undergoing rapid transformations, and technology plays a crucial yet ambiva-lent role in these transformations – as seen in recent debates about artificial intelligence, neurotech-nologies, and autonomous systems. Despite its centrality, technology often remains peripheral in the portfolio of social science disciplines, with many theories neglecting technology as an explicit or essen-tial factor. Theories of justice and democracy, for instance, often treat their core concerns as if they were separable from technology and innovation. Simultaneously, major technology development ef-forts often regard social science as an afterthought. This disconnect leaves us ill-equipped to address interconnected global challenges, growing distrust in technologies and experts, and the transformative impact of technologies on our lives.

SyNergy — the Munich Cluster of Systems Neurology — defined Systems Neurology as a new research field where systems-level biology and systems neuroscience meet clinical neurology. Backed by the two Munich Excellence universities and five Helmholtz and Max Planck institutes, this long-term program has yielded remarkable insights and established permanent infrastructure.

ORIGINS has set out to understand the evolution of our Universe from the Big Bang to the emergence of life, addressing some of humanity's deepest questions. In the last six years, we have built a unique collaboration between bio-, particle-, and astro-physicists at leading institutes in the Munich area. Our common goal is to unravel the origin of the Universe; starting from primordial quantum fluctuations which give rise to the cosmic web, leading to the formation of galaxies, stars, planets, and the emergence of life itself.

Nucleic acid research has continued to provide groundbreaking insights into fundamental biological mechanisms. Originally considered primarily as carriers of genetic information, we now know that nucleic acids can also play an active role, for example as catalysts of enzymatic reactions, as structural components of macromolecular complexes, as guide and scaffold structures, as regulators and even as signaling molecules and ligands (nucleic acids as ‘subjects’).

Scientists across the world are expanding the frontiers of our knowledge and experimental capabilities in quantum science. MCQST researchers have played a highly significant role in this endeavor, successfully establishing MCQST as a world-leading research center in quantum science and technology (QST). They have generated seminal scientific advances within QST, which have been recognized through numerous awards and honors. At the same time, MCQST has developed into an anchor point that shapes and develops the Munich quantum ecosystem.

e-conversion focuses on researching energy conversion processes that take place at interfaces. Wherever light, charges, and matter interact, our Cluster of Excellence explores the fundamentals of future energy technologies.

New materials with customized functionality form the basis for progress of modern technology, from information and communication via energy generation, distribution and storage to mobility and beyond. Condensed matter physics, having time and again sparked major technological breakthroughs, has produced a game-changing paradigm termed topology: materials can have remarkable and robust global properties which lie beyond what can simply be measured locally.

The Cluster of Excellence "Cross-Cultural Philology" explores philological practices and cultural dynamics across a period of 5,000 years through a cross-cultural approach. Its focus lies on the rich philological traditions of the Near and Middle East, East Asia, the Indian subcontinent, North, East, and West Africa, and Europe. The aim is to identify similarities and differences, continuities and discontinuities, yielding insights far beyond the current state of the art.

Chirality, the property that makes an object distinct from its mirror image, is ubiquitous in nature. It is found in elementary particles, in molecules and biological structures, and manifests itself in many physical phenomena. In particular, it gives rise to a remarkable intrinsic stability against external perturbations that has spurred a strong worldwide interest in chiral materials.