What is a “Focus Area”?

Scholars and scientists from different disciplines come together in the Focus Areas at Freie Universität. Their aim is to answer important questions in research through interdisciplinary and cross-disciplinary networks of knowledge and skills. The Focus Areas concentrate on larger interdisciplinary groups of related topics.

This results in a “research matrix” that spans the entire university and enables holistic, synergetic exploration of fields with particularly high potential for the future.

The first prerequisite for this is a societal and academic need for research and development in the specific areas addressed by the clusters’ research. The second prerequisite is that the scholars and scientists who participate in the clusters need to take new approaches in striving to answer the central question.

The Focus Areas identify important fields of research, analyze them for their suitability as topics of research by scholars and scientists at Freie Universität, and bring the appropriate partners together. By building on networks and skills already present within the university, the Focus Areas are able to pool existing resources and generate synergetic effects.

At the moment there already exist five Focus Areas at the Freie Universität. More are to be developed.