The Berlin University Alliance has won funding as a group in the Universities of Excellence funding line of the German government’s Excellence Strategy. The four Berlin partners – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin – submitted a joint proposal entitled Crossing Boundaries toward an Integrated Research Environment.

The four partners within the Berlin University Alliance aim to overcome institutional and disciplinary boundaries in order to create an integrated research environment. They want to use their combined strength to be a driving force to further develop Berlin into a leading research hub in Europe and an international leader. Many issues that concern society and scholarship are so large and complex that they can only be investigated through collaboration of researchers from various disciplines. At the same time, they require the involvement of society and a strengthening of the dialogue with Berlin’s non-university research institutes, politics, business, culture, and civil society as well as international partners. To achieve this, the members of the Berlin University Alliance aim to develop a new quality in their collaboration and to pursue key issues together. They intend to address major social challenges together through interdisciplinary research. Furthermore, they aim to deepen the ongoing exchange between research and society and to better promote academic career paths with shared resources. They would like to set consistent standards in the quality of research and to utilize the scientific infrastructure, such as modern labs and expensive large equipment, together and with less bureaucracy.

For the members of the Berlin University Alliance, diversity and tolerance as well as the education of young researchers are all prerequisites for excellent research and teaching. Accordingly, the partners aim to focus on central cross-cutting issues such as the promotion of diversity and gender equality, research-oriented teaching and learning, and internationalization.