It was a superlative event: More than 60 university presidents, vice presidents, party secretaries, and officials responsible for Chinese affairs from China and Germany were joined by a large number of high-ranking representatives of the business sector and aid organizations at last Friday’s German-Chinese Forum for Higher Education, Research and Innovation, held at Freie Universität.

The University of California at Berkeley and Freie Universität Berlin have signed an agreement to collaborate in the form of a strategic partnership. Prof. Nicholas Dirks, Chancellor of UC Berkeley, and Prof. Dr. Peter-André Alt, President of Freie Universität Berlin, signed a memorandum of understanding to cooperate closely in the research, support for young researchers, and teaching.

Arabic studies scholar Prof. Dr. Beatrice Gründler from Freie Universität Berlin has won a Leibniz Prize for 2017 from the German Research Foundation (DFG). Gründler was selected by the Joint Committee from among 134 nominees, as the DFG announced on Thursday in Bonn. Prof. Dr. Ralph Hertwig, a cognitive psychologist and director of the Center for Adaptive Rationality at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development, who is also an adjunct professor at Freie Universität, is another one of the ten winners, three women and seven men.

Climate change is in full swing, but how do flora and fauna respond to it? Are there only losers, or do some species actually benefit? And how do certain species manage to adapt? Biologists all over the world are engaged in lab experiments to find out. But how realistic are they?

Princeton, New Jersey, January 1938: Before the journalists arrive, Albert Einstein takes a moment to himself. Sixty at the time, Einstein knew what he owed his audience. With a few practiced motions, he fluffed out his gray-white mane until it stood out in all directions. Then he entered the library at the elite university, where the camera crews from the American weekly newsreels were already waiting for him.

Seven liaison offices around the world ensure that Freie Universität maintains a strong and well-developed network. The office in New York is responsible for the United States and Canada. Katja Simons has been in charge of the office since April of this year. A graduate of Freie Universität with a doctorate in social sciences, Simons has a wealth of experience to draw on in her work.

He wanted to be able to read Kafka in the original, and he loved Beethoven and Bach. When Douglas Nygren, a student at the University of Minnesota, applied for a scholarship to study at Freie Universität for a year, he wanted one thing above all: to learn German. During his year abroad, in 1967/68, he did in fact learn a great deal about Georg Büchner.