Hurricanes, earthquakes, and floods cause devastating damage around the world. Space-based Earth observation, communication, and navigation systems can provide important assistance in warning of and managing disasters. Global capacity building for such peaceful uses of space technology should continue to advance. To this end, the University of Bonn, the International Peace Alliance (IPA Space) and the United Nations Office for Outer Space Affairs (UNOOSA) have signed a partnership agreement for the next four years.

At the end of June 2025, Arne Rieber successfully defended his dissertation on the political ecology of water infrastructure in Kenya under the supervision of Prof. Detlef Müller-Mahn. Congratulations!

Professor Lisa Schipper is Principal Investigator of the new project “Path Dependency: Unpacking the Colonial Roots of Vulnerability to Climate Change” on colonialism and climate change. Funded through the Cluster of Excellence "Bonn Center for Dependency and Slavery Studies" (BCDSS), the project explores how colonial legacies shaped development pathways and continue to amplify vulnerability to climate change in West and North Africa. 

With the support of the Ministry of Economic Affairs of the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, a joint consortium of scientific teams and space industry has now launched the “DIEGOSat” satellite feasibility project. Under the leadership of Dr. Johannes Schultz from Ruhr University Bochum, a thermal infrared sensor, originally developed for the International Space Station (ISS), is foreseen to be operated on its own satellite. The satellite sensor will provide thermal imaging data with high temporal resolution, enabling a variety of applications in environmental monitoring, agriculture and disaster control. Researchers from the University of Bonn are involved in the project.  

This year's International Paper Award of the Department of Geography at the University of Bonn goes to Douwe van Schie, research group Development Geography by Prof. Dr. Lisa Schipper, and Dr. Frankline Ndi, Economic Geography from Prof. Dr. Britta Klagge. Congratulations!

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!  

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.