The university management is reacting to the current health situation regarding the coronavirus (2019-nCoV) and to the public health emergency of international concern declared by the World Health Organisation (WHO) on January 30, 2020.[Weiterlesen]

NRW Ministry and DAAD to continue funding

For the next few years, Bielefeld University can continue its work to integrate students and study applicants with a refugee background. The Ministry of Culture and Science (MKW) in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia (NRW) is making more than 1.2 million euro available to fund the work of the university from now until the end of 2022. The money comes from the programme ‘NRWege ins Studium – Integration von Flüchtlingen an Hochschulen in Nordrhein-Westfalen’ [Ways to study in NRW – Integration of refugees in universities in North Rhine-Westphalia] that is being coordinated by the German Academic Exchange Service (DAAD).[Weiterlesen]

The German Weather Service (DWD) has now lowered the severe weather warning level for Bielefeld and now only warns of distinctive weather (level 2).   
In view of this current weather situation for Bielefeld, the university management has decided to resume normal university operations from 12:00 noon.
Nevertheless, university management would like to ask you to take the weather situation into account when planning your routes today and to watch out for any loose building components or branches.

More data and better algorithms: predictions are becoming increasingly more accurate and this is changing insurance policies, medicine, and police work. 

Police that can predict future crimes: it sounds like the plot from the science fiction thriller ‘Minority Report’ in which Tom Cruise hunts murderers before they can commit their crimes. Such a scenario is not that far distant from reality—already today, for example, the police are using computers to prevent burglaries. ‘Predictive policing’ aims to use enormous datasets and complex algorithms to predict offences as accurately as possible. Similar developments are to be found in insurance and medicine. Here as well, more data and better algorithms are making more accurate and more individualized predictions. Car insurance, for example, is using data collected on driving style when calculating tariffs; and cancer medicine is promising personalized treatment methods for patients with specific genetic characteristics.[Weiterlesen]

Bielefeld University to coordinate European research network

Doctors treat tumours mainly through surgery, radiotherapy, and chemotherapy. Over the next four years, a new project of Bielefeld University and 14 European partners will be studying targeted cancer treatments. The idea is that special molecules will track tumour cells in the body and then deliver an active agent that ensures that the cancerous cells are removed. Fifteen doctoral students will be working together in the ‘Magicbullet::Reloaded’ research network. The project is a cooperation between universities, research institutes, and industry. It is being funded by the European Union with a budget of around four million euro.[Weiterlesen]

German Research Foundation (DFG) funds new Research Unit

Plants are often very individual when it comes to their specific defence chemicals and other metabolites. Such chemical diversity (chemodiversity) can be found both in different plants of the same species and within an individual plant. The German Research Foundation (DFG) is providing a Research Unit led by Bielefeld University with around two million euros in funding to explore the chemodiversity of plants. The chemical composition of plants can impact the foodwebs of a plant as well as its environment and biological interactions. Spokesperson for the DFG Research Unit is Professor Dr Caroline Müller from the Faculty of Biology at Bielefeld University; her deputy is junior professor Dr Meike Wittmann, also from the Faculty of Biology.[Weiterlesen]

• Professor Dr-Ing. Gerhard Sagerer elected to the Foundation Board of the Universität zu Lübeck
• Professor Dr Marcelo da Costa Pinto Neves receives a Humboldt Research Award
• Professor Dr Armin Gölzhäuser is appointed a Fellow of the American Vacuum Society
• Professor Dr Krzysztof Redlich receives an honorary doctorate from the Faculty of Physics
• Privatdozent Dr Nadine Böhm-Schnitker is awarded a Habilitation Prize
• Four researchers at Bielefeld University elected to DFG Review Boards[Weiterlesen]

Today (3 December 2019), the members of the University Electoral Committee confirmed Dr Stephan Becker for another term as chancellor of Bielefeld University with a clear majority. Becker's second term of office begins on 4 August 2020 and runs for six years.[Weiterlesen]

New vice-rectorate for Personnel Development and Gender Equality and new vice-rector for Education and Teaching

Today (29/11/2019) saw the election of five vice-rectors. Two of them are new to the office, and one vice-rectorate has been newly created. Professor Dr Birgit Lütje-Klose is one of those newly elected; she succeeds Professor Dr Claudia Riemer as vice-rector for Education and Teaching. Also new is Professor Dr Marie I. Kaiser, who assumes the newly created vice-rectorate for Personnel Development and Gender Equality. The incumbents of the other vice-rectorates retain their positions: Professor Dr Martin Egelhaaf, Research and Research Transfer, Professor Dr Angelika Epple, International Affairs and Diversity, and Professor Dr Reinhold Decker, Information Infrastructure and Business Relations. The new vice-rectorate’s term of office begins immediately and runs for four years.[Weiterlesen]

New funding format at ZiF

Science needs diverse perspectives. However, researchers from African countries are still underrepresented in the international scientific community. In order to increase the diversity of perspectives in the ZiF research groups and to make African researchers more visible, the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF) is now offering two scholarships per year for researchers from Africa: the Norbert Elias Fellowships.[Weiterlesen]