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Comic-like depiction of a person climbing a DNA ladder.
Event Reports 21 June 2018

Herrenhausen Symposium "Individualized Infection Medicine – The Future is Now"

How may individualization find its way into care of patients with infectious diseases? This topic was discussed during the international Herrenhausen Symposium in Hanover on June 21 to 23, 2018.

News 04 June 2018

Social Inequality as a Global Challenge – Call for Cooperation Projects with Extended Perspectives

Finite resources, social inequality, climate change, terrorism – the world is facing major challenges. The UN's "Sustainable Development Goals" are a contribution towards overcoming these threats. The Volkswagen Foundation, together with partner foundations in Europe, wants to underscore the role played by the sciences in reaching the SDG targets by offering a new funding scheme. Initially, support is given to international research projects on social inequality. Cooperative teams can be funded with up to 1.5 million Euro; deadline for applications is October 30, 2018.

News 30 May 2018

Scientific Exchange in Almaty on Research "Between Europe and the Orient"

Junior and senior grantees of the Foundation’s initiative for research in/on Central Asia and the Caucasus met to present and discuss project results

News 25 May 2018

Looking at the brain while it works – Interview with Dr. Laura Ewell

Freigeist-Fellow Dr. Laura Ewell develops a new new technique to identify brain cells within an intact functioning network. We talked to her about her research project, what fuels her curiosity and drives her as a researcher and a Freigeist.

Story 22 May 2018

Give Chance a Chance

For the first time, the lot luck decides in the funding initiative "Experiment!" on the eligibility of project applications. With this procedure, the Volkswagen Foundation enters new territory in the funding landscape.

News 17 May 2018

On the contentious issue of ethnographic objects – 1.2 million euro for provenance research in northern Germany

The history surrounding the ethnographic collections in Hanover, Göttingen, Oldenburg, Hildesheim and Braunschweig will be the focus of a large collaborative project over the next three years.

Illustration: Reproduktion von Reichtum
Story 14 May 2025

Politics and wealth: a lopsided alliance?

A small, rich minority is becoming increasingly wealthy. Eva Wegner and Miquel Pellicer ask: How does politics contribute to growing economic inequality – and whose interests do MPs actually represent?

Eine Frau, die aufmerksam zuhört
Story 06 March 2025

So that everyone can have their say: Citizens' assembly on AI research

Rhetoric expert Anika Kaiser researches how people can make themselves heard on the major issues of our time – artificial intelligence (AI) being a case in point. She is the right person to take care that this grassroots democratic process does not remain too detached from reality: in her first life, she trained as a painter.