Goethe University President Prof. Enrico Schleiff congratulated the researchers on their successful proposal: "A new Collaborative Research Centre is fantastic news for Goethe University - and in this particular case, for educational equity in Germany. I am fully aware of how much energy, creativity, and perseverance are required to prepare such a major project, and the result shows that the effort was definitely worth it. There is an urgent need to explore why educational opportunities in Germany are still not distributed fairly. I wish everyone involved continued success with their exciting and important research. The fact that three extensions for our Transregios have been approved confirms the quality of our research in the natural sciences and mathematics and strengthens our research capabilities within the Rhine-Main Universities alliance."
For the past 50 years, opportunities to participate in education have continued to expand. At the same time, significant inequalities persist in terms of who benefits from these opportunities and how. Children and young people from families with limited educational resources, from migrant backgrounds, and those with disabilities and/or special educational needs are still not adequately reached. This inconsistency within the democratic promise of equal opportunity continues to erode trust in educational institutions.
The new Collaborative Research Center [in:just] 1750 at Goethe University Frankfurt will investigate the causes and contexts behind the persistent inequality in Germany's educational system. To support this work, the CRC will receive a total of €14 million over the next three years and nine months. 31 researchers from diverse disciplines including the educational sciences, sociology, philosophy, political science, law, human geography, and computer science have come together to form an interdisciplinary consortium led by the educational sciences. The spokespersons for the project are Prof. Merle Hummrich and Prof. Vera Moser, both from Goethe University's Faculty of Educational Sciences. Prof. Merle Hummrich focuses on youth and schools, while Prof. Vera Moser, holding the Kathrin and Stefan Quandt Foundation Professorship, works in the field of inclusion research.
The center will adopt multiple perspectives to examine institutionalized processes of participation and recognition involving children, adolescents, and young adults within the German education system. Research topics include teaching in multilingual contexts or addressing students perceived having "behavioral disorders," procedures of caretaking of children and adolescents as well as unaccompanied minor refugees by youth welfare, the impact of gentrification on the quality of regional educational opportunities, the influence of parents' advocacy power, and computer-based decision-making to be analyzed comparatively in education and legal systems. The program also encompasses international comparative research on the implementation of the UN Convention on the Rights of Persons with Disabilities and on children's rights, also within intersectional perspectives.
"Within significant societal crises and challenges that we are facing today, we are deeply grateful for this tremendous opportunity to study the upbringing of children and young people in our education system" says Prof. Merle Hummrich. "I find it particularly important to examine how human rights norms impact the daily lives of young people," emphasizes inclusion expert Prof. Vera Moser.
Collaborative Research Centres-Transregios Extended
The DFG also announced the continuation of the following CRC-Transregios, in which researchers from Goethe University play a significant role:
How can highly complex geometric and arithmetic structures be described using simpler spaces? This question is the focus of TRR 326 "Geometry and Arithmetic of Uniformized Structures (GAUS)," which is now entering its second funding phase with a budget of €13.7 million. Mathematicians are applying the principle of mathematical "uniformization," which creates order within complexity: Hard-to-grasp spaces from modern geometry and arithmetic are replaced by simpler models without altering their essential form. A clear example is the surface of a life ring (an elliptic curve): An ant living on this surface can travel either lengthwise or crosswise in a loop, always returning to its starting point. This behavior is reflected in uniformization, represented by a plane covered with a grid - the grid lines illustrate the ant's travel routes extended infinitely. This transformation reveals hidden symmetries, making questions at the intersection of geometry and numbers theory manageable and answerable.
Participating institutions include Goethe University Frankfurt as the lead university, Technical University Darmstadt, and Heidelberg University. Partners include Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz - which, along with Frankfurt and Darmstadt, forms the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) alliance - as well as Leibniz University Hannover and the University of Münster.
Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Jakob Stix (Goethe University Frankfurt)
Co-Spokespersons: Prof. Jan Hendrik Bruinier (TU Darmstadt), Prof. Alexander Schmidt (Heidelberg University)
Website: https://crc326gaus.de/
Matter under such extreme conditions that even protons and neutrons break apart - this is the focus of TRR 211 "Strong-Interaction Matter under Extreme Conditions," which has been approved for its third funding phase. The participating researchers are investigating what happens when matter is heated and compressed to such an extent that its fundamental building blocks - quarks and gluons - are released. These states can be created for fractions of a second in particle accelerators and occur in space, for example, during the merger of neutron stars. The findings contribute to a deeper understanding of the strong nuclear force, which holds everything together at its core. Alongside Goethe University Frankfurt, TU Darmstadt and Bielefeld University are also involved.
Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Sören Schlichting (Bielefeld University)
Co-Spokespersons: Prof. Dr. Hannah Elfner (Goethe University Frankfurt), Prof. Dr. Guy Moore (TU Darmstadt)
Website: https://crc-tr211.org/
The study of a zone in the atmosphere that separates the lower "weather layer" (troposphere) from the stratosphere above, known as the tropopause region, is the research topic of TRR 301 "The Tropopause Region in a Changing Atmosphere." The research focuses on the physical and chemical processes in this region and their influence on planetary circulation and climate. As part of TRR 301, researchers from Goethe University participated in the aircraft measurement campaign on oxidation processes in the atmosphere (CAFE), which helped explain how the Amazon rainforest functions as a "cloud machine." The main locations of TRR 301 are Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz and Goethe University Frankfurt. Additional partners include Technical University Darmstadt, LMU Munich, the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz, Forschungszentrum Jülich, and the German Aerospace Center (DLR) in Weßling.
Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Peter Hoor, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, [email protected]
Co-Spokesperson: Prof. Dr. Joachim Curtius, Goethe University Frankfurt, [email protected]
Website: https://tpchange.de/
The Amazon rainforest as a cloud machine: How thunderstorms and plant transpiration produce condensation nuclei: https://aktuelles.uni-frankfurt.de/english/the-amazon-rainforest-as-a-cloud-machine-how-thunderstorms-and-plant-transpiration-produce-condensation-nuclei/
DFG press release (in German):
https://www.dfg.de/de/service/presse/pressemitteilungen/2025/pressemitteilung-nr-37
Further Information
Prof. Dr. Merle Hummrich (CRC 1750)
Institute of Secondary Education
Goethe University Frankfurt
Tel.: +49 (0)69 798 -36323
