The Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies (BCDSS) investigates well-known forms of de-pendency – such as Roman, transatlantic or Mamluk slavery, forced labor and debt bondage – as well as less visible forms, such as human trafficking and domestic servitude.

The construction sector consumes vast amounts of energy and resources, and is a major contributor to greenhouse gas emissions. It also suffers from low productivity and strenuous working conditions, while facing labor shortages and having a severe impact on the environment in terms of waste, noise, and other emissions. To mitigate global warming while still providing people with affordable homes and infrastructure that are resilient to the consequences of climate change, the construction industry requires a disruptive transformation.

In recent years, cyberspace has embraced an ever-larger share of our lives, and the notion of the digital society has become a reality. At the same time, we observe massive qualitative and quantitative shifts in the cybersecurity landscape. The attack surface has expanded dramatically, with adversaries targeting a broad range of entities, including hospitals, government services, higher education institutions, and critical infrastructure. This is further aggravated by the evolution of nation-state attackers pursuing geopolitical goals such as election interference. Finally, the emergence of disruptive technologies like generative AI, quantum computing, and the growing popularity of blockchains and cryptocurrencies further amplifies the digital risks. This dramatic change in the cybersecurity landscape poses a fundamental threat to our society, jeopardizing democratic processes, critical infrastructures, and citizens’ privacy and well-being alike.

Today’s world is witnessing an ever-increasing number of older people. Aging is the primary risk factor for diabetes, cardiac, kidney, neurodegenerative, and skin diseases – among others. This dramatic demographic change poses enormous health and socio-economic challenges for societies, highlighting the urgent need to foster a healthy aging agenda.

Climate change and the depletion of natural resources threaten global food security and ecosystem stability. The Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS) addresses these great challenges through fundamental research on complex traits of plants and associated microbiota (holobiont) that impact adaptation to limited resources and environmental change. This knowledge is key to CEPLAS’s long-term goal of predicting plant performance and enabling the design of SMART plants with novel traits and improved environmental adaptation.

Questions about the nature of matter and the fundamental forces, about the history of the Universe and the origin of everything we observe have always been at the core of human curiosity. Today, the Standard Model of Particle Physics describes the interactions between the fundamental building blocks of matter, the quarks and leptons, but leaves several central questions unanswered: What is the mechanism behind the formation of matter by the strong „color“ force? How did the asymmetry between matter and antimatter in the Universe emerge and how is it related to the different „flavors“ of quarks seen in the weak interaction? Are there yet unknown particles or forces?

The dynamic evolution of our Universe is regulated by nonlinear physical processes that occur on vastly different timescales, from fractions of a second to billions of years. How are they interconnected to shape the Universe?

ECONtribute’s goal is to break new ground in the analysis of markets & public policy. Motivated by pressing societal challenges, ECONtribute has advanced a new perspective in the first funding period by incorporating manifold ways of human thinking and acting into analyses of markets and policies. This includes drawing on notions of fairness, social preferences, beliefs, and expectations to explain market behavior, guide effective market and policy design, and the development of tools to assess the distributive implications of policies.

The Cluster of Excellence Hausdorff Center for Mathematics (HCM) promotes cutting-edge research in mathematics and its applications, establishing Bonn as a focal point for leading international scholars. HCM’s research program encompasses a broad spectrum of mathematics, ranging from groundbreaking foundational work to applications in industry and medicine.

Immunology is fundamental to human health and thus highly relevant to society. ImmunoSensation has become an internationally visible immunological center with strong collaborative ties to leading institutions worldwide and has made numerous contributions to immunology, particularly innate immunity. Its innovative scientific concept of the immune system as a sensory system is now an accepted paradigm and immune sensing a widely used term.