With the formation of the Berlin University Alliance, the four Alliance partners – Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin – want to develop the research hub of Berlin into an integrated research environment. In order to bring the five objectives and three cross-cutting themes to life, new staff members will support the new overarching work structure and joint projects.

Janosch Wegener has been a Program Manager for institutional frameworks at the Berlin University Alliance administrative office since March 2021. Before that, he worked as an academic assistant in the Department of Building and Planning Law at the BTU Cottbus-Senftenberg and as a lawyer. The BUA's administrative office is responsible for the overall project management of the alliance. It ensures the implementation of the planned projects with regard to the alliance's objectives and, in particular, accompanies the alliance's committees. In addition, the administrative office develops and structures the inter-institutional processes in coordination with the partner institutions.

Dr. Ina Opitz has been responsible for the Berlin Citizen Forums as a Program Manager in the area of Research Forums since February 15, 2021 (Objective 2: Fostering Knowledge Exchange). Before that she worked at the Museum für Naturkunde – Leibniz Institute for Evolution and Biodiversity Science. There she mainly dealt with processes in science communication and recognition in and for citizen science. One focus of the partner institutions in the BUA is to disseminate scientific ideas and research results to the outside world and at the same time to incorporate external perspectives and experiences into research. This multidirectional knowledge exchange is to be strengthened in the measure of the Research Forums. To this end, processes and methods are being developed and tested to show how the topics and knowledge of various social actors in Berlin can be combined and further developed in new transdisciplinary research partnerships.