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Creating creative environments (interview with Rector Prof. Weiler)
Research Department Interfacial Systems Chemistry (IFSC)
Research Department of Neuroscience
Take a look-in at the RUB’s top research
A series of eight video clips offer insights into the idea and implementation of the Ruhr-Universität’s Research Departments (RD) and Applied Competence Clusters (ACC). The series kicks off with an interview with Rector Prof. Elmar Weiler.
Creating creative environments (interview with Rector Prof. Weiler)
Research Departments are comparable to large collaborative research centres. Researchers from various disciplines work on a new long-term research topic from their own respective perspectives - from the basics to its systematic application. Because it is precisely at the boundaries between the disciplines that groundbreaking new findings are to be expected in future. In this respect, the Research Departments are not closed rooms: specialists in transfer issues take the results from the Departments and give them a wider platform, again attracting proven experts. Research Departments form creative environments which all differ somewhat from each other, and which develop further of their own accord. In this way, the particularly good ones – the successful models are found. In the long term, the Research Departments will thus contribute to the structural formation of the Ruhr-Universität.
Research Department Interfacial Systems Chemistry (IFSC)
In the frame of the RD IFSC we acquire a comprehensive understanding of the complexity at interfaces - from the intermolecular interaction and aggregation of small molecules up to the fundamental understanding of the emergence of chemical complexity in biological systems. This goal can only be achieved in interdisciplinary and international networks and cooperations. One important goal is a systematic integration of young scientists and flat hierarchies to assure an early independence of scientists. The Applied Competence Cluster (ACC-THz) supplement the excellent basic research in the RD IFSC delivering an efficient transfer of technologies. The ACC-THz concentrates on the transfer of promising developments and applications in the field of spectroscopic technologies.
Research Department CERES
The CERES Research Department (“Center for Religious Studies”) harnesses synergies from twenty humanities and social science disciplines at RUB to research religious formation and diffusion processes. It builds on several national and international joint research projects with an interdisciplinary focus (Käte Hamburger Kolleg „Dynamics in the History of Religions between Asia and Europe“, DFG-Research Group „Transformation of Religion“, EU-Project „What are the Impacts of Religious Diversity“, Young Academics Research Group “Religious Networking” and several individual research projects). The research program “Relational Religion. Complex Resonances and Figurations in and beyond the Religious Field” pools and combines the results of these preceding studies into overarching research topics. The basic starting point of this research is the working hypothesis that the relationality of religion comprises four different dimensions:
- knowledge, which offers orientation,
- experience, which generates evidence,
- actions, which unfold between planning, regulation and implementation,
- the materiality which co-determines psychological and social processes.
The research topic at the heart of the Research Department is the emergence of the religious field in its web of relationships to other areas of society such as economics, politics, law, medicine, science, education and art both from a historical-contemporary perspective and a comparative cultural perspective.
Materials Research Department
The Materials Research Department brings together scientist from the Ruhr-Universität Bochum and surrounding research institutes (Max-Planck-Institut für Eisenforschung, Düsseldorf), MPI-Kohlenforschung Mülheim, German Aerospace Center (DLR, Köln)), thus pooling the research strength in the field of materials science, with the aim of conducting cutting-edge research in the field of the integrity of small-scale systems and high-temperature materials . In cooperation with the faculties of mechanical engineering, electrical engineering, chemistry, physics, mathematics and geosciences, and combined with the expertise of the different research institutions based at the Ruhr-Universität Bochum, including the Interdisciplinary Centre for Advanced Materials Simulation (ICAMS) and the Central Unit for Ionbeams and Radionuclides (RUBION) new pathways in cooperative research are forged.
Research Department of Neuroscience
The Research Department of Neuroscience has adopted a neuroscience strategy that fuses basic research with clinical approaches and extends to the level of computational modeling of brain function. The strength of the Department is its highly interdisciplinary orientation, which integrates the expertise from traditional scientific areas such as medicine, psychology, biology, biochemistry and informatics, into a single focused field of study of the brain. One goal is to complement basic research that studies how the brain works (eg. seeing, hearing, learning, remembering and consciousness) by investigations of brain diseases and novel disease therapies. The strategy to push back the boundaries of knowledge runs on three levels: creating appropriate structures and infrastructures for excellent neuroscience research by for example establishing modern methods such as brain imaging, engaging in collaborative synergies through research projects that span many disciplines and fostering the next generation of neuroscientists by supports scientific independence at an early career stage and facilitating the integration of family and career. For our students the International Graduate School of Neuroscience comprises the educational branch of the Research Department of Neuroscience with the right to award doctorates – "PhD in Neuroscience". Teaching, research and publications as cooperative efforts are quite naturally part of the interdisciplinary work.
Research Department Plasmas with Complex Interactions
The scientific aims of the interdisciplinary Research Department “Plasmas with Complex Interactions” are to explore currently unknown scientific areas, characterized by the complex interactions of plasmas with their surroundings. The Research Department carries plasma techniques and methods well beyond their traditional limits by exploring the interfaces to solid state physics, materials science, chemistry, biology and astronomy. By blending these “mother disciplines” with plasma science new cutting edge research areas are opened up. Existing internationally visible research activities will be further strengthened and synergistically enhanced. University-wide more than twenty four institutes and research groups with more than 300 employees concentrate on the following research topics: High energy particle astrophysics, Computational plasma physics, plasma technology for biomedical applications, plasma process development and control, nano particles and plasma driven light sources, new types of plasma sources (ICP, VHF, Jets), plasma treatment of plastics to enhance diffusion properties, plasma diagnostics and process monitoring, atmospheric micro plasmas, plasma modelling, plasmas for ecological power generation. The Applied Competence Cluster Plasma Technology (ACC-PT) is integrated into the excellent research within the RD "Plasmas with Complex Interactions" and manages an efficient technology and knowledge transfer of promising developments into industrially relevant applications. One of its working fields is the treatment and functionalization of material surfaces. Possible applications span from (polymer) surface activation to thin film coatings with diverse properties (scratch resistant, low-wear, low-friction, hydrophilic/hydrophobic, barrier coatings, markers, optical coatings) to medical applications such as decontamination/sterilization of (thermolabile) goods and wound treatment.
Protein Research Department
The Protein Research Department (PRD) bundles cutting-edge research for a better understanding of cellular protein networks. Topics ranging from protein structure and mechanism, macromolecular assemblies, and functions of membrane-protein complexes up to cellular behaviour are studied from a molecular perspective using state of the art methods in structural biology, biophysics, biochemistry, and cell biology. Its targets are to bridge the gap between molecular and systemic approaches, achieve molecular understanding of the respective cellular processes, and gain insight into the relationship between genetically programmed and dynamically regulated networks. The PRD focuses on studies on sensory transduction originating at G-Protein Coupled receptors (GPCRs) and pathways involving GTP-binding proteins of the Ras superfamily. Since defects in the addressed interactions account for a variety of serious diseases including cancer, the acquired understanding at the atomic level should eventually result in the development of innovative biotechnology applications with long-term benefits for public health, e.g. the identification of biomarkers.