Newsroom

54 applications, ten funded tandems - and a lottery drum: with the Night Science funding programme, the Volkswagen Foundation is for the first time specifically supporting the creative beginnings of scientific projects.

Administration without queues – this could be the outcome of Prof. Dr. Anna Maria Oberländer's 'Change!' project. Her goal: people-centred digital administration.

Sixty years ago, a unique scientific collaboration began between Germany and Israel. A ceremony at Herrenhausen Palace on 15 September celebrated this engine of innovation and mutual understanding –  as well as the 100th anniversary of two leading Israeli universities.

On 10 September 2025, experts gathered at Herrenhausen Palace to take part in a symposium on the topic of why authoritarian regimes routinely attack educational institutions, what this says about the value of these institutions to open societies, and how universities can return to their core mission.

Mitchell G. Ash (Vienna) spoke about the transformation of research and universities since the Second World War and the possible fundamental impact of the current US politics on global academia on September 11th, 2025 in Hanover. See his lecture here.

A new RoRI study on the use of distributed peer review (DPR) at the Volkswagen Foundation shows how the review process can speed up funding decisions and make them more democratic.