The research group “Civil Sea Rescue as a Crystallization Point of the Debate on Democracy” (ZivDem) is hosting a collaborative workshop with researchers and practitioners from outside academia on November 28, 2025 at IMPULSE – House for Intellectual Innovation and Creativity. Research findings will be presented and critically reflected upon by practitioners.

On November 6, 2025, the Bonn Platform for (Forced) Migration Studies will host its next transdisciplinary roundtable at MIGRApolis in Bonn. Starting at 5:30 p.m., we will discuss effective ways of working together in the context of flight and migration with experts from academia and civil society. The detailed program will be available here shortly. Address: MIGRApolis, Brüdergasse 18, 53111 Bonn

From September 1 to 6, 2025, the first Uni Bonn Game Week, organized by the Bonn Lab for Analog Games and Imaginative Play and EnaCom, took place. Various events wereheld here on the topic of games in research, teaching, and as cultural assets (Interview as part of the program WDR 3 Resonanzen). The week started with a big game night in the Campo cafeteria (Report as part of the WDR Lokalzeit program). More Information can be found here.

From September 1 to 12, 2025, the FIW will host a training session with international game designers as part of the DATIpilot project “Playing for the Future: The Innovation Potential of Tabletop Role-Playing Games in Education.” The training is aimed at employees and students of the Bonn Lab for Analog Games and Imaginative Play and will take place at IMPULSE – House for Intellectual Innovation and Creativity (Adenauerallee 131).During the training, tabletop role-playing game designers from Malaysia, Canada, the US, and Germany will exchange ideas with game researchers from the University of Bonn on innovative game ideas for use in education.

Damien Krichewsky (FIW, University of Bonn) and Michael Shirungu (University of Namibia) will lead a flexible interactive dialogue session on the topic of “Transformation toward justice and equity” at the TC/ESG25 conference “Navigating Sustainability Transformations Towards Justice and Equity” from August 18 to 21, 2025, in Johannesburg, South Africa, on the topic of “Transforming Biodiversity Policy through Pluriversal Action Research.”

Several EU member states are undermining refugee protection in Europe in view of the relatively low number of asylum seekers at the EU's eastern external borders and justify this with attempts by Russia and Belarus to “instrumentalize” migration. In a newly published policy brief, Judith Kohlenberger, Paula Hoffmeyer-Zlotnik, Lena Laube, Bernd Parusel and Daniele Saracino examine the narrative of the “instrumentalization” of migration and its impact on asylum policy in the EU: Link.

The lecture will take place at 16:15 in lecture hall IV (HS IV). Abstract  How did the seemingly simple act of asking structured questions shape modernity? This project traces the social and epistemic history of questionnaires, surveys, and interrogations from seventeenth-century scientific societies to early twentieth-century statistical congresses. Focusing on five arenas—scientific inquiry, state governance, professional expertise, legal interrogation, and transnational standardisation—it explores how formalised questioning produced new forms of knowledge and authority. Through comparative archival case studies from Europe and North America, the project aims to explain the emergence of categories like “household”, “occupation”, and “truth”, linking their history to contemporary debates on data ethics, citizenship, and surveillance. The lecture will outline the research agenda and its relevance across the humanities and social sciences.

Religious studies researcher Dr. Ramona Jelinek-Menke joined the Department of Religious Studies team on 1 March 2025.