In the Cluster of Excellence 3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O), we pursue the vision of turning digital blueprints into reality using scalable 3D additive manufacturing. This form of shaping matter, in which one locally adds material rather than subtracting it, has become a powerful tool at the macroscale. Our unique selling point is that we bring this technology towards the molecular scale, to answer previously inaccessible questions in the life and engineering sciences and enable new applications.

Founded on more than forty years of experience at the University of Bayreuth in conducting Africa-focused research, the Africa Multiple Cluster of Excellence is designed to develop new responses to the theoretical, methodological and structural challenges facing African Studies. Since its inception in 2019, Africa Multiple has spearheaded innovative approaches and forms of collaborative research, with the objective of reconfiguring African Studies on both the conceptual and the structural level.

The health and well-being of humans, animals and plants, and a stable climate, are major concerns of our time. The functioning of all ecosystems on Earth depends critically on finely balanced interactions among microorganisms thriving in interconnected habitats like soil, water, and the human body. The balance of these microbiomes is constantly challenged by environmental and anthropogenic disturbances, leading to ecosystem degradation, severe crop losses, or disease. Current therapeutics often target symptoms rather than root causes, using disruptive agents like non-specific antibiotics that can worsen conditions. Although these issues are of utmost societal importance, there is a critical gap in our knowledge of the molecular factors that control microbiome dynamics.

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 Cluster of Excellence Biosystems Design Munich (BioSysteM) is dedicated to the creation of a vivid, interdisciplinary research environment that will enable the transition to a constructional design approach towards the life sciences. Designing complex molecular and cellular systems with programmable properties resembling those of living organisms will enable us to better understand life as a phenomenon, create living or life-like materials with unprecedented capabilities, and build the foundation for a revolutionary next generation of applications in the life sciences and biomedicine.

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 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.

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.

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.

CeTI²'s vision is to enable humans and machines to interact in near real time in globally distributed real and virtual environments. The cluster aims to develop innovative technological solutions to global challenges such as pandemics, demographic change, skills shortages, climate change, and geopolitical uncertainties.

Our mission is to understand the molecular language of life. How do cells in the body perceive signals in their environment, integrate this information to make decisions, and communicate with one another to coordinate functions in tissues? By developing new tools to control signalling, we strive to accelerate innovation for health and sustainable agriculture.

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.

Human health depends critically on the microorganisms associated with body surfaces, collectively referred to as the microbiome. In a healthy state, these commensal microbes together support important physiological host functions. In contrast, bacterial pathogens cause millions of deaths per year, with rising numbers, driven by antibiotic resistance and limited corporate antibiotic development programs. Preventing the spread and infection by antibiotic-resistant bacterial pathogens (ARBPs) is essential for preserving fundamental medical achievements of the 20th century.

At the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour, we aim to create a global hotspot for the integrated study of collective behaviour across a wide range of species and across scales of organization. 

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?

Despite significant advances, heart and lung diseases remain the leading causes of death worldwide. In addition, the success of current therapies combined with improved long-term survival and an aging society, has changed the course of disease and created new challenges that need innovative solutions. The development of targeted therapies requires deep understanding of the complex metabolic, (epi-)genomic and proteomic changes underlying cardiopulmonary diseases and a collaborative effort to translate discoveries.

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.

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.

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 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?

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.

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.

Forests cover about 30% of the global land surface and provide many crucial ecosystem services (ESs) such as renewable resources production, climate change mitigation, water retention, promotion of human health, and protection of biodiversity. However, with rapid climate change, unprecedented disturbances, the introduction of non-native and loss of native species, large tracts of forests are developing into novel ecosystems with no analogue in evolutionary history. The extent to which these novel ecosystems can provide desired ESs and protect biodiversity is highly uncertain.

Plants are the foundation of terrestrial life. To ensure survival, plants have evolved effective and versatile strategies that cope with changes in the environment, ensuring robustness, i.e. the maintenance of function despite perturbation. Given increasing anthropogenic pressures on our planet, understanding the mechanisms and limits of plant robustness is crucial for developing effective, knowledge-based mitigation strategies to preserve plant-based ecosystems and ensure agricultural productivity.

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.

Hearing loss, the most common sensory disease, impacts communication, cognition, brain health, social participation, and well-being. As a leading consortium with unmatched interdisciplinary expertise in hearing research, we uncovered the effects of hearing loss on brain and cognition during previous funding phases and developed pioneering biomedical and engineering solutions for personalized hearing care. Although we have substantially advanced hearing loss treatment, we are still far from fully restoring the richness of natural hearing. This is due to a lack of insights into the links between molecular and auditory profiles necessary for causal therapies, and a scarcity of truly transformative technological approaches for rehabilitative treatment of hearing loss. However, with recent developments in genetics, data science, AI and health technologies, we now have an unprecedented opportunity to address these limitations.

The 21st century is an exciting time in human origins research. Rapid methodological advances have revolutionized the study of fossil and archaeological remains, while surprising discoveries have overturned the status quo and upended long-established assumptions. We now know that multiple hominin species, representing a previously unimaginable diversity of human relatives, not only co-existed in time and space, but also interbred repeatedly, questioning traditional definitions of species.

Despite intensive research efforts, we are facing a rapidly increasing number of cancer cases and cancer deaths worldwide. Successes in cancer screening and early detection have meant that some tumors can be detected earlier and treated curatively, but, depending on the tumor disease, 25-50% of all solid cancers are still diagnosed at an advanced, often metastatic stage. Such tumors are complex systemic diseases which, despite a growing number of novel therapeutics, are still incurable in most cases. They are the focus of the iFIT Cluster of Excellence.

A functioning society requires not only rules, procedures and institutions, but also shared ideas, narratives and images. The social practices of sharing these ideas, narratives and images constitute what we call ‘social imagining’. It involves the creation of communally distributed, intersubjectively recognised imaginaries that provide orientation and stability in everyday life.

ImmunoPreCept pioneers a paradigm shift in medicine: moving from treating symptomatic diseases to actively preserving health. The cluster deciphers how immune-tissue networks maintain homeostasis and how early molecular changes can predict disease, enabling targeted prevention and early interception of common chronic diseases.

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.

The Cluster of Excellence “The Politics of Inequality” investigates how political pro-cesses create, reinforce, or reduce social inequalities. By examining the interplay of perception, participation, and policy, we explore the dynamics of inequality in democ-racies and non-democracies around the world.

The Cluster of Excellence Integrative Computational Design and Construction for Transformative Architecture (IntCDC) aims to lay the methodological foundations for the urgently needed, future-proof and climate-positive transformation of the way buildings are designed and constructed. Based on interdisciplinary and integrative research, IntCDC seeks to harness the full potential of digital technologies to address the severe environmental, economic and social challenges that the building sector is facing. To do so, IntCDC bundles the internationally recognised competencies of the University of Stuttgart, the Max Planck Institute for Intelligent Systems and Bauhaus Earth across the fields of architecture, structural engineering, building physics and engineering geodesy, manufacturing and systems engineering, computer science and robotics, social sciences, humanities and economics.

The vision of the Internet of Production (IoP) is to enable a new level of crossdomain collaboration by providing semantically adequate and context-aware data from production, development and usage in real-time, on an adequate level of granularity.

LeiCeM is a clinically oriented research center dedicated to finding novel approaches that change trajectories in patients with the “metabolic syndrome” (MetS) to reduce disease burden (heart disease, stroke, kidney failure, liver disease, neurodegeneration).

The vision of the livMatS-Cluster is to merge the best of two worlds, the biological and the tech-nological realm, to develop living adaptive energy-autonomous Materials Systems.

A key driver of the climate crisis is the man-made imbalance in the carbon cycle. Microorganisms play a key role in the biological carbon cycle because they invented the conversion of CO2 billions of years ago and made our planet a life-friendly world. Today, they convert about as much CO2 globally as plants do.

Machine learning is changing science even more profoundly than we imagined only a few years ago. While it has proven useful in tackling individual, long-standing scientific problems, recent developments suggest even more far-reaching possibilities. Foundation models, trained on vast datasets, provide general purpose representations suitable for a wide range of downstream tasks, and have already revolutionized tasks involving language. Diffusion models allow the generation of samples from complex probability distributions, and modern programming frameworks make it possible to implement scientific theories as part of machine learning workflows. Thus, machine learning is creating new possibilities in nearly all stages of scientific discovery and inquiry. At the same time, machine learning methodologies have obvious shortcomings regarding reliability, robustness, and interpretability, and come with risks, challenges, and blind spots.

The Berlin Mathematics Research Center MATH+ aims to advance mathematics in close interaction with interdisciplinary research in order to make progress on central questions across a broad range of application areas.

The Cluster "Mathematics Münster: Dynamics – Geometry – Structure" advances cutting-edge research by implementing integrated approaches to solve fundamental problems across various mathematical disciplines. These approaches combine different techniques, perspectives, or fields of expertise to address challenges comprehensively.

The Cluster »Matters of Activity. Image Space Material« aims to create a basis for a new culture of materials. The central vision of the Cluster is to rediscover the analog in the activity of images, spaces and materials in the age of the digital.

The goal of the cluster of excellence Multiscale Bioimaging: from Molecular Machines to Networks of Excitable Cells (MBExC) is to decipher disease-relevant nanoscale functional units in cardiac and neural excitable cells.

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.

The Cluster of Excellence “Matter and Light for Quantum Computing” (ML4Q) launched its scientific program in 2019. Its goal is to develop the foundations of a comprehensive quantum technology with computing and networking functionality. Leading researchers from the Universities of Cologne, Bonn, and Aachen, together with Forschungszentrum Jülich, are bundling their expertise in the fields of solid-state physics, quantum optics and quantum information to decisively advance this future-oriented field.

One of the most spectacular of all animal behaviours is the ability to precisely navigate over vast distances. Transcontinental flights of tiny insects with minute brains or the global movements of billions of birds, sometimes to destinations never previously visited, are remarkable feats which are still barely understood. The scientific mission of NaviSense is to provide a thorough, interdisciplinary understanding of the senses and mechanisms used by animals to navigate, and how these mechanisms can inspire technology and impact society, ecology, and biodiversity.

The focus of our cluster of excellence is on understanding neurological and psychiatric disorders. The aim of this interdisciplinary research network is to gain a deeper understanding of the underlying disease mechanisms and, on this basis, to develop new therapeutic approaches.

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’).

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.

PhenoRob represents a sustainable, technology-driven transformation of agriculture. The Cluster of Excellence addresses the central challenge of making crop production more efficient, resource-conserving, and sustainable at the same time. The aim is to explore new pathways for future-oriented crop production through novel technology-driven approaches and interdisciplinary collaboration.

PhoenixD, unique in Germany for technical optics, pursues a holistic approach by developing innovative optical systems that integrate hardware and software.

The Cluster of Excellence “Precision Medicine in Chronic Inflammation” (PMI) investigates how chronic inflammations can be better understood, treated, and prevented on an individual basis. A particular focus lies on translational clinical research.

Major advances in physics over the last century have contributed to our understanding of various states of matter. However, today, the characteristics of the living state of matter are still not understood, as well as how complex spatiotemporal organization emerges in living systems. Therefore, identifying the physical principles that govern life remains one of the most significant scientific challenges of our time. The Cluster of Excellence Physics of Life (PoL), one of five Clusters at Dresden University of Technology, aims to address this challenge, with the goal of revealing the physical laws that govern the dynamic organization of living matter.

Energiewende – the energy transition that forms a fundamental tenet of our global economy – faces challenges from limited material availability, extinction of European mining industries, geopolitical threats, and price fluctuations. This is particularly relevant for electrochemical energy storage (EES), a key technology for enabling the use of renewable energy. Alternative EES technologies are needed, which requires coordinated, fundamental research aiming for high-performance, safe, affordable and sustainable solutions. These must be based on diverse and abundant raw materials, enhancing energy security and sovereignty and ensuring a resilient and sustainable energy future.

At the core of our Universe lies a world of particles so small they defy imagination, yet so fundamental they shape everything we see. The Standard Model (SM) of Particle Physics describes the microscopic world with extraordinary precision, providing a deep understanding of fundamental interactions, the structure of matter, and the evolution of the Universe.

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?

“To measure is to know” – that is the essence of the natural sciences. Measuring at the quantum frontier is the essence of quantum metrology.

Over the past decade, deep learning (DL) has driven groundbreaking advances in artificial intelligence (AI). However, current DL-based AI systems are unreasonable in many ways: (1) They are developed and deployed in unreasonable ways, requiring overly large models, vast amounts of data and computational power, and extensive infrastructure. This has led to a monopoly held by a few large companies with the necessary resources. (2) They struggle with reasoning, handling unfamiliar situations, and nuanced context. They lack commonsense understanding and abstraction capabilities. (3) They do not improve continuously, learn through interactions, or adapt quickly. Instead, they require frequent retraining, resulting in high economic and environmental costs. Such unreasonable learning makes them brittle.

“Responsible Electronics in the Climate Change Era” (REC²) will create disruptive paradigm shifts in the conceptualisation, design, realisation, usage and end-of-life treatment of electronic devices. Our society is dependent on electronics, which are increasingly integrated into every aspect of our lives. Electronics are essential for our continued progress, providing solutions to global challenges like climate change. At the same time, electronics are also part of the problem: Their already vast energy needs continue to grow, and their ever-shorter replacement cycles drive enormous consumption.

The Cluster of Excellence “Religion and Politics. Dynamics of Tradition and Innovation” at the University of Münster has been investigating the complex relationship between religion and politics across epochs and cultures since 2007. The 140 researchers from 10 countries and more than 20 disciplines in the humanities and social sciences are particularly concerned in the funding phase from 2019 to 2025 with the “dynamics of tradition and innovation”.

The RESIST Cluster of Excellence team is committed to helping people who are particularly susceptible to infections. These include newborns, senior citizens and people with weakened immune systems. For them, viruses and bacteria can be not only stressful, but often life-threatening.

RESOLV pioneered Solvation Science as an interdisciplinary research field. Solvents are no longer understood as mere bystanders but have been recognized to play an active and decisive role in chemical processes. RESOLV provides a cohesive framework and innovative techniques, many of them developed by us, for understanding and controlling solvent-driven processes. Exploiting the transformative power of Solvation Science is key to address urgent scientific and societal challenges, such as transitioning from fossil to sustainable carbon and energy sources for chemical feedstock production.

Our Cluster of Excellence explores the deep roots of social, environmental, and cultural phenomena and processes that substantially marked past human development. In doing so, ROOTS helps to explain the long-term development of connectivities and to understand how they continue to have an impact today.

The central vision of the Cluster of Excellence SCALE (Subcellular Architecture of Life) is to understand the molecular principles that govern the internal organization of cells. SCALE investigates how cellular structures are formed, how they dynamically change, and how they communicate with one another in health, stress, and disease.

The Cluster of Excellence "Science of Intelligence (SCIoI)" fundamentally advances our understanding of intelligence, integrate and unify theories, concepts, and insights from existing intelligence-related disciplines, catalyze progress in these disciplines, and - perhaps most importantly - advance our ability to construct intelligent technological artifacts for applications of societal importance.

The liberal model of society is under increasing pressure worldwide. Authoritarian and illiberal states, as well as violent non-state actors, pose serious challenges to liberal democracies from the outside. From within, populist movements and parties claim to uphold liberal values while simultaneously contesting their meaning, thereby fueling extremism, eroding trust in institutions, and deepening social polarization.

The cluster "Sustainable and Energy-Efficient Aviation" seeks to establish scientific foundations for the transformation of the air transport system over the next decades.

Since 2019, researchers from the Cluster of Excellence "Data-Integrated Simulation Science (SimTech)" at the University of Stuttgart have been developing a new class of simulation- and data-driven approaches that enhance the applicability and accuracy of simulations, changing the way we conduct science and technology.

The cluster of excellence STRUCTURES explores new concepts and methods for understanding how structure, collective phenomena, and complexity emerge from the fundamental laws of physics. These concepts are also central for finding structures in large datasets, and for realizing new forms of analogue computing.

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.

Bottom-up Synthetic Immunology: New Strategies Against Infection and Cancer. Infectious diseases such as AIDS and malaria, along with hard-to-treat cancers like pancreatic and brain tumors, continue to pose major global health challenges. Despite significant progress, effective preventive or curative measures remain elusive for many of these conditions. A shared feature of these diseases is their ability to evade the immune system—often through similar mechanisms. Yet, targeted interventions to modulate the complex interactions between immune cells and tissues remain limited, and experimental models to study such interventions are still in their infancy.

The Cluster of Excellence 2020 "Temporal Communities: Doing Literature in a Global Perspective" aims to create a new theoretical and methodological take on literature in a global perspective that moves beyond the categories of nation and period and conceives of literature instead as a transcultural and transtemporal phenomenon in deep time.

The air we breathe, the water we drink, the food we eat, and other resources we use, have resulted from interactions between the Earth’s geosphere and biosphere. Understanding these interactions is thus essential for human survival and wellbeing, which are endangered by anthropogenically induced climate and land-use change. While contemporary anthropogenic pressures are unprecedented, the processes and natural laws governing the Earth System remain universal.

The goal of The Adaptive Mind is to transform our scientific understanding of how humans adapt to changing conditions. Our results will not only answer one of the deepest questions in the sciences of the mind, but also open new avenues for individualised approaches to mental health, and the creation of robust, human-aligned artificial intelligence systems. Adaptability is possibly the most remarkable feature of the human mind.

The future will be renewable! Shaping a post-fossil era mandates the development of disruptive technologies for the production and use of liquid energy carriers and chemical products as basis for a truly sustainable energy-chemistry nexus within the planetary boundaries. Energyrich molecules harnessing renewable energy jointly with renewable material feedstocks offer an important contribution to the defossilization of the transport sector. This applies especially to long-haul, heavy duty, and non-road applications, which are difficult or even impossible to electrify, yet have significant contributions to the total energy demand. At the same time, energyrich molecules are essential components for a net-zero production of chemicals serving as the foundation for nutrition, health, and prosperity.

The continuous geographic and demographic expansion of humankind has relied on the assumption of essentially unlimited resources and particularly on the massive exploitation of fossil fuels. This has set us on a path toward a rapidly deteriorating environment and an impending age of scarcity, which will challenge the very fundamentals of nearly all production technologies. Accordingly, various research efforts are now focused on achieving a more sustainable, efficient and automated production.

The ocean floor is the largest interface in the Earth system, where geological, physical, biological, and chemical processes drive global biogeochemical element cycling and climate dynamics. The Cluster addresses key gaps in process understanding on the global role of the ocean floor by quantifying interconnected budgets of energy, carbon and other elements as well as their dynamically changing properties under warming conditions.

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.

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.

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.

UniSysCat is an interdisciplinary research network working jointly on coupled reactions in catalysis. To master this challenge, our research groups are comprising molecular and structural biologists, biochemists and biophysicists, physical and theoretical chemists as well as physicists.