What makes a life with science so special, and what framework conditions must be in place to make it possible for universities as our high-performance academic institutions to offer opportunities and fulfillment? A conversation between Enrico Schleiff, President of Goethe University Frankfurt, and the Secretary General of the Volkswagen Foundation, Georg Schütte – moderated by Christine Prußky.

In the very large thematic area of biodiversity, Joachim Haug works on very small objects: insect and crustacean larvae. His wife is also an enthusiastic zoologist. So, it's hardly surprising that the passion for research also took hold of their two children at an early age.

Scholar of administration Tetiana Kovalova had to give up her home in Kharkiv – but not her research. She is now in Jena, working on a project to do with post-war reconciliation and conflict transformation. Her work is supported by the Volkswagen Foundation.

Diving into archives, tracing the migration of museum objects through time and contexts – this is how provenance researcher Claudia Andratschke describes her work. A portrait.

Stefanie Kroker works in the field of nanometrology, creating the tiniest structures and developing techniques to measure them as precisely as possible. Research on quantum computing could also benefit from this. A portrait.

Not only crises caused by political upheavals or famines continue to wreak havoc on societies and communities on the African continent. Gilbert Fokou, a social anthropologist from Cameroon, sees himself as a bridging interface between the people and decision-makers in politics. He is driven by a strong determination to help the very poor.