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.

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. 

Climate change threatens the existence of many people and ecosystems. In view of the scientific findings, many researchers are also worried about the future. Should they talk openly about their feelings? In the new episode of the Hypothesis Podcast of the University of Bonn, geography professor Lisa Schipper, head of the research group Development Geography, discusses the thesis “Science needs facts, not emotions” with host Denis Nasser. The podcast episode is in English.

As part of the ERASMUS+ worldwide cooperation, the Department of Geography welcomed Dr. Eliaza Jones Mkuna from Mzumbe University, Tanzania. He is a Senior Lecturer in Economics at the Faculty of Social Sciences at Mzumbe University in the Department of Economics and Head of Research and Publications Department. 

The Federal Ministry of Education and Science (BMBF) has been funding the Programme on Water Security in Southern Africa (WASA) since this year, in which the ‘Eco-Hydrology and Water Resources Management’ working group, led by Prof. Evers, participates.

From Oct. 10-11, 2024 the workshop "Intimate geographies of migration: (Countering) postcolonial violence in the urban everyday" took place in Bonn. The event was organised by Dr. Elisabeth Kirndörfer and Lea Haack from the research group "Cultural Geography". This report summarises the panel on "The intimate geographies of migration: (Countering) postcolonial violence in the urban everyday" and the panel discussion on "Critical engagements with postcolonial power relations in our research fields and at the University".