Research profile
Research at Bielefeld University means overcoming boundaries - between disciplines, between people and between science and society. This understanding is our driving force for basic research at an international level.
Rethinking research
As a reform university, Bielefeld University stands for constant renewal. This also means dynamically shaping our research profile and promoting topics with great future potential.
With the current profile-building process, we are on exactly this path: building on outstanding collaborative research projects and excellent structures, we are pursuing the goal of creating a characteristic profile that gives us identity internally, visibility externally and strengthens our international competitiveness.
Find out more about profile development
Research worlds
The four profiling, thematic research worlds focus on major topics of our time and offer points of contact for business and society.
Connected by the Bielefeld principle of Transcending Boundaries, all research worlds involve different faculties and scientific departments and realize interdisciplinary top-level research on an international level in joint research projects as well as through third-party funding.
Inequality, Uncertainty and Individualisation in a Changing World
Complex processes and effects of individual and social dynamics
Structures and Complexity in a Material World
Structures and processes at the interfaces of physics, chemistry, biology and bioinformatics
Collaborative Synergies in a Mathematical World
Basic concepts and theories in mathematics for application in economics and natural sciences
Intelligent Systems and Inclusive AI in a Socio-Technical World
Intelligent systems and inclusive AI at the interfaces of technology, medicine and society
Research centres
Many complex phenomena of our time can no longer be adequately understood with the resources of a single discipline. Our central academic institutes (ZWE) therefore pursue their research topics on an interdisciplinary basis. They combine the expertise of several faculties and take up innovative research impulses.
Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF)
The ZiF is the Institute for Advanced Study at Bielefeld University. As an independent, thematically unbound institution, it promotes interdisciplinary and innovative research and is open to academics from all countries and disciplines. Researchers at the ZiF have the opportunity to realise an interdisciplinary project together with international colleagues, free from the constraints of everyday academic life.
Research projects
Funding from external funding institutions and large collaborative projects are an important signal of a university's research strength. Here too - when it comes to acquiring third-party funding and funding awards - Bielefeld University benefits from its fundamental culture of interdisciplinarity and cooperation.
