Biological materials achieve an exquisite diversity and functionality through just a small number of abundant chemical elements. While engineering materials primarily use specific, often unsustainable, chemical compositions to realize their functions, nature achieves unparalleled functionality through optimized architectures that span multiple length scales. Water, with its ubiquity and unique structural dynamics, plays a pivotal role as a “working fluid” in shaping the properties and functionality of nature’s materials.

The future of our planet – for the human race, the fauna and flora, and all generations to come – largely depends on how Earth’s climate evolves. In this regard, which climate futures are plausible, and how can desirable futures be achieved? These questions are subject to considerable uncertainty. In order to make decisions, we human beings have to be able to realistically judge our circumstances, have to know what’s coming our way and what options we have for shaping tomorrow. At the University of Hamburg’s Cluster of Excellence “Climate, Climatic Change, and Society” (CLICCS), researchers are tackling these complex questions using a unique combination of academic rigor and interdisciplinary diversity.

Functionalities are at the heart of the Cluster of Excellence "CUI: Advanced Imaging of Matter“. Atoms bind together and form solids, molecules interact and react - new functionalities emerge with increasing complexity and growing system size.

The Cluster of Excellence Quantum Universe II (QU-II) seeks to advance our understanding of the fundamental laws of nature that underlie all physical processes from the earliest quantum era of cosmological history to the largest gravitational structures of today’s Universe. Despite the success of the Standard Model of particle physics and general relativity in describing the microscopic components of the Universe and gravitational interactions at cosmic scales, fundamental questions remain: What produced the large imbalance between matter and antimatter? What is the dark matter that constitutes 85% of the total matter in the Universe? What causes the accelerated expansion of the cosmos? How can gravity be described by a quantum theory, and what is its underlying mathematics?

Writing is one of humanity’s central cultural techniques. Over millennia, it has shaped societies and survived every social and technological revolution. The significance of handwriting is not limited to the content of what is written; it is also revealed in the materials used, writing tools, contexts of use, and the manner in which written artefacts are processed, passed on, and preserved. Inscribed stone tablets, palm-leaf manuscripts, papyrus rolls, medieval codices, graffiti — the diversity of artefacts reflects the wide range of functions that handwriting has fulfilled and continues to fulfil in daily life.