The University of Göttingen is an internationally renowned research university. Founded in 1737 in the Age of Enlightenment, the University is committed to the values of social responsibility of science, democracy, tolerance and justice. It offers a comprehensive range of subjects across 13 faculties: in the natural sciences, humanities, social sciences and medicine. With about 28,000 students and more than 210 degree programmes, the University is one of the largest in Germany.
New press releases
Working together to combat wildfires: building resilient landscapes
Wildfires in the Mediterranean region are becoming drastically more intense. The recent major fires in France, Spain and Greece show that firefighting efforts are reaching their limits. An international research team led by the Universities of Göttingen and Kassel is therefore calling for a fundamentally new approach to landscape design: in the journal iScience, the researchers demonstrate that wildfire prevention should be conceived and planned in conjunction with nature conservation, agriculture and rural development.
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Zooming in: electron orbitals photographed in 3D
Fundamental particles, such as electrons, cannot be pinned down to one single location. Instead, a particle is described by its “wavefunction”. The electron wavefunctions within a molecule, known as “molecular orbitals”, carry information about how the molecule interacts with its surroundings so imaging the wavefunction is a major challenge. Researchers managed to image the 3D wavefunction of a nanometer-sized organic molecule by combining state-of-the-art photoelectron spectroscopy with powerful mathematical algorithms.
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Trees in extreme drought in Germany
Forests in many regions of the world are increasingly under stress caused by drought as a result of climate change. Even forest ecosystems traditionally considered to be water-rich are being affected by prolonged periods of drought with increasing frequency. Since 2021, researchers from the University of Göttingen, in collaboration with the nearby Lauterberg Forestry Office, have been investigating how soil moisture affects the vitality of beech trees in the Harz Mountains in Germany.
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Drought alters pest infestations
Drought creates increasing challenges for agriculture: as well as affecting the growth of crops, it also affects interactions with pests. A research team at the University of Göttingen has investigated how different levels of drought affect the susceptibility of sugar beet to damage caused by the beet leaf miner (Pegomya cunicularia) – a fly whose larvae create visible tunnels inside the leaves.
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Fine-flavour cacao: high yields and income for smallholder farmers
Plantations of native fine-flavour cacao in countries like Peru have become rare due to the dominance of high-yielding cacao varieties for mass production. This threatens the valuable native cacao crop’s genetic diversity. An international research team studied the use of selected genotypes of a native variety, known by local farmers for its high productivity, for grafting fully grown cacao trees.
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How do migrants judge inequality?
Margherita Cusmano has been awarded a research prize by the Körber Foundation for her PhD thesis, “How Migrants View Economic Inequality: A Mixed-Methods Study in Germany”. Cusmano completed her PhD at the University of Göttingen and is currently working as a research fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Political and Social Science. The prize is worth 10,000 euros.
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