Sustainability
Got a flat tire? No problem: There are four bicycle repair stations around campus – just one example of the many measures the university has been taking to promote climate friendly mobility this year. The financial support for the repair stations comes from the national climate protection initiative through the German Federal Ministry for the Environment, Climate Action, Nature Conservation, and Nuclear Safety. Thanks to the FUturRad – Bicycle-friendly Campus Freie Universität Berlin project, the university is receiving around 800,000 euros to invest into bicycle friendly mobility around campus. The results from the latest mobility survey show that more and more university members are cycling to campus. Plus, once on campus, people are covering about one quarter of the distances they travel with bicycles. In addition to the thirty-five standard bicycles that are already available to university members on campus, we now have sixteen electric cargo bikes that you can use.
Sustainability continues to be a primary concern at Freie Universität both in practical and academic contexts. The interdisciplinary public lecture program “Offener Hörsaal” is hosting a series entitled “Biodiverse Berlin – from the Perspective of Research, Nature Conservation, and Society.” The Living Lab Multispecies Campus project explored biodiversity on campus through research-based and hands-on activities: a cinema for crows, hedgehog tunnels, and campus ranger Leon von Salisch. At the Sustainability Days, organized by SUSTAIN IT! in early July, the provocative central question was “WHO CARES” – the two days of events and activities invited participants to consider whose responsibility is it to ensure that the future is more sustainable.
The new 2025 Environment Declaration and the 2024 Sustainability Report give a clear overview of how the different measures work together to promote sustainability at Freie Universität. In fact, our university was selected by 240 jury members for the German Sustainability Award as one of three finalists in the category “Schools and Universities.” This was an exciting honor that recognizes the hard work Freie Universität has been doing to promote sustainability over the last twenty years.
International
People from all around the world come to Freie Universität Berlin to study, conduct research, and work. In August 2025, the university once again offered intensive German language classes to prospective students from forced migration backgrounds. Over the past ten years, over 600 students have taken advantage of the language program to help them pursue a university degree or doctoral research, or to give them an edge on the job market.
Freie Universität Berlin succeeded in securing almost two million euros in funding to support its Erasmus+ partnerships outside of Europe. Most of the recently acquired funding will go directly to grants, enabling students and employees to travel to eighty partner universities in thirty-nine countries. In November, Freie Universität Berlin and the University of Namibia strengthened their longstanding partnership with a Memorandum of Understanding between the universities and a faculty-level cooperation agreement between their respective veterinary departments. Other departments are also looking into possibilities of future cooperation with our new partner.
Without international cooperation, many discoveries would never be unearthed: researchers from Freie Universität Berlin and the University of York are examining Neolithic waste to understand how the earliest farming communities in Europe adapted to a more sedentary way of life. This fall prehistoric archaeologists from Freie Universität Berlin began research at the UNESCO World Heritage Site of Göbekli Tepe in south-eastern Turkey as part of an international team. Another exciting discovery was made by Freie Universität archaeologists in Italy this year: They uncovered an ancient auditorium that offers unique insight into how young citizens of the ancient city of Agrigento, Sicily, were educated.
Research in Action
Some basic research focuses solely on theoretical questions, but practical applications also often come into play. In the field of space exploration, the practical applications might seem worlds away, but this year Freie Universität researchers were contributing to actual space missions: The search for Earth-like planets reached an important milestone this year with the PLATO mission, which will use its twenty-six cameras to study terrestrial exoplanets. Researchers from Freie Universität Berlin and German Aerospace Center (DLR) built a radiometer for measuring the temperature inside lunar craters. Evidence of organic compounds on Saturn’s moon Enceladus was also discovered with the help of Freie Universität experts.
Historian Jessica Gienow-Hecht’s research on “nation branding” reached new audiences this year with the publication of her German monograph Vom Staat zur Marke: Die Geschichte des Nation Branding. An interdisciplinary research team is investigating tipping points in river systems as a result of climate change. And the cyberbullying prevention program Medienhelden (Media Heroes), developed at Freie Universität Berlin, is being rolled out in many schools across Germany.
With FUB Innovation GmbH and a new scale-up laboratory, Freie Universität Berlin expanded its ecosystem for transferring insights from the life sciences in October 2025. In their scale-up lab, with rooms in the FUHUB, materials and molecules used in a research context can be produced in larger quantities – an important step on the path to market development.
Time to Celebrate: Anniversaries and More!
Freie Universität celebrated many milestones this year. For example, the Long Night of Science commemorated its twenty-fifth anniversary in June with more than 10,000 visitors – a record high since the pandemic. We also saw the SUSTAIN IT! Initiative for Sustainability + Climate Protection turn fifteen. Congratulations on the many years of demonstrating how a committed university community can actively shape change! The Berlin Consortium for German Studies (BCGS) entered its third decade of enabling student exchange between Freie Universität Berlin and six Ivy League universities in the US.
On December 4, Ernst Reuter Day, Freie Universität Berlin celebrated its seventy-seventh anniversary. In her keynote speech, author and journalist Carolin Emcke implored us to take a stand for academic freedom. Defending freedoms, she said, is not a comfortable or easy path. “But we have the best, the most beautiful, the most gratifying thing to defend,” she concluded.
And speaking of celebrating: A study has unraveled the secret of getting past the bouncers at Berlin’s techno clubs. So if you want to know how to finally get into Berghain, look no further.
Wishing you all the best for 2026!
The Office of Communication and Marketing
