The Rector Reports

“Connecting Creative Minds”: that was the motto for the 2017/18 academic year – and under the same motto the University of Freiburg wants to continue to shape its future and raise its profile both in the Excellence Competition and together with its partners as a European university. What successes and challenges shaped the past academic year? Rector Prof. Dr. Hans-Jochen Schiewer will be presenting the annual review in the Senate.

Networking people, releasing creativity: Rector Hans-Jochen Schiewer presents the annual review. Photo: Patrick Seeger

The annual review focuses amongst other things on the Clusters of Excellence CIBSS – Centre for Integrative Biological Signalling study and livMatS – Living, Adaptive and Energy-autonomous Materials Systems which were approved in September 2018. This success in the first round of the Excellence Competition qualified the University of Freiburg for the second phase, meaning that it will be competing for the title of “University of Excellence”. In its application “Connecting Creative Minds – Trinational, European, Global” it describes its future development: a major factor affecting the work of researchers, teachers, administrative staff and students will be the exchange of ideas in regional, European and global networks.

The rector will also be presenting information on other significant developments: together with his French colleagues from the Upper Rhine region, in May 2018 the Prime Minister of Baden-Württemberg Winfried Kretschmann signed a declaration that provides momentum for the cross-border grouping Eucor – The European Campus and aims to develop it into a European university. The European Union competition refers back to an initiative of the French President Emmanuel Macron. Other successes include the foundation of the School of Education FACE in October 2018, which is an arrangement enabling the university and the Freiburg University of Education to train potential teachers jointly, and the opening of the Maria Sibylla Merian Institute for Advanced Studies in Africa (MIASA), a cooperation between Freiburg and the University of Accra/Ghana.

The rector will present the annual review on 12 December 2018 at 2.15 p.m. in the Senate Room of the Rectorate. All members of the university are warmly invited. No need to register.