The Einstein Foundation Berlin has announced new funding for individuals, structures, and projects at the three major Berlin universities and Charité-Universitätsmedizin Berlin. Altogether the Einstein Foundation approved grants totaling 6.4 million euros. Funds were approved for a new type of program called Einstein Circle. The team of the Einstein Circle Global History includes historians Sebastian Conrad and Ulrike Freitag (both at Freie Universität Berlin) and Andreas Eckert (a professor of African history at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin). They plan to build on, as well as expand, the existing collaboration between the two universities while they explore issues related to the processes and effects of ongoing globalization from a global-historical perspective.

The funding includes a new Einstein-research project on the “Role of microRNAs in post-stroke dysregulation and homeostasis of brain-body communication.” The project will be led by Andreas Meisel, a professor of neurology at Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, and Hermona Soreq, a professor of neurology at the Hebrew University of Jerusalem. They aim to gain a better understanding of the body’s molecular processes during a stroke and to generate new therapeutic approaches.

Seven highly regarded researchers from Great Britain, Italy, Norway, Spain, and the United States are being supported as Einstein Visiting Fellows. They will set up a new research group in Berlin or continue an already existing research collaboration. They include an expert on behavioral and developmental economies, Bertil Tungodden, a professor at the Norwegian School of Economics, who will set up a research group at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin and the hydrologist Chris Soulsby, a professor at the University of Aberdeen, who in the future will also be working at Technische Universität Berlin. Katrina Forest, a professor of bacteriology, chemistry, and biophysics at the University of Wisconsin-Madison will also be a new Einstein Visiting Fellow in Berlin. Three existing Einstein Visiting Fellowships were extended by two years each.

Three early-career researchers, Martin Lüthe, Léo Botton-Divet, and Andreas Riedo, are being supported as Einstein Junior Fellows or International Postdoctoral Fellows. Ten addtional researchers are being supported as Einstein Guest Researchers within an Einstein program intended to foster academic freedom.

The Einstein Foundation Berlin aims to promote science and research of top international caliber in Berlin and to establish the city as a center of scientific excellence. In addition to its endowment, the Foundation also receives state funding. An independent scientific commission of the highest standard selects projects for funding.