From June 23–27, 2025, the University of Bonn hosted its first International Partner Days, welcoming around 30 guests from 15 countries for a week of workshops, lectures, and networking under the theme "Change and Challenges." A special highlight was the visit from our partner university in Tanzania (Mzumbe University). During their visit to our Department, the Tanzanian guests discussed future research collaboration and student exchange, and gained insights into our administrative processes. Beyond the academic program, guests enjoyed discovering Bonn and left with new ideas and plans for continued collaboration.

The Department of Geography has defined five new research focus areas that enable and promote joint research on current global challenges for society and the Earth system at the department and beyond. The topics Water Futures, Risk and Security, Governing Transformations, Inequality and Justice and Land Surface Dynamics are intradisciplinary in geography and will lead to collaborations within the University of Bonn’s Transdisciplinary Research Areas as well as with other institutes and researchers at the University of Bonn, the Geoverbund ABC/J and with research partners in Germany and further afield.

Learned during their studies,  put to immediate use at the UNESCO Water Youth Dialogue: 14 geography students worked together with  young people from over 40 water youth organisations worldwide in Paris on a Water Youth Strategy. The aim: to integrate and strengthen young and marginalised voices in global water policy!  

Ten Kenyan Master's students visited the Department of Geography in Bonn from 28 May to 9 June 2025 as part of the international exchange project ‘Future Rural Africa’ in order to present research results of a previously conducted field research on rural water management in Kenya together with students from Bonn. The visit offered all participants a valuable experience of intercultural learning and academic exchange, which was concluded with a visit to the ‘Futurium’ in Berlin.

Benedikt Walker and Dr. Linus Kalvelage (university of Cologne) have won the 2024 JOEG Early Career Researcher Paper Prize for their study of Germany’s extraterritorial role in Namibia’s green hydrogen industry. Their paper reveals how states use de-risking, asset creation and market-building to steer global production networks, even in liberal economies. We warmly congratulate them on this prestigious award.

Dr. Alexandr Nováček, Assistant Professor at the Department of Human Geography and Regional Development at our ERASMUS+ partner University in Ostrava (Czech Republic), visited our Department from May 20 to 22, 2025. His connection to Bonn dates back to his ERASMUS stay at GIUB in 2014. 

Between April and May, Prof. Dr. Nir Orion and Dr. Ariel Meroz put Earth Systems Education into practice: students began with a Melbtal field excursion to frame geological questions, deepened their inquiry through hands-on lab experiments, debated “Climate crisis or educational crisis?” in the “Wednesdays at the GIUB” lecture, and rounded off the week with a Siebengebirge excursion to apply ESE’s field-based teaching principles. Our thanks go to the Bonn Center for Teacher Education (BZL) and the German-Israeli Society Bonn (DIG) for their support.

The Department of Geography of the University of Bonn has revised its citation style! From now on, the updated style is not only available as a guide, but can also be used directly in citation programs such as Zotero and Citavi. The new citation style also contains guidelines for citing interviews, for example.