Delegation from UMass Boston Visits German Partner Universities
A delegation from UMass Boston recently visited four key partner institutions in Germany. The delegation was led by Chancellor Marcelo Suárez-Orozco, and included Vice Provost for Research and Strategic Initiatives Bala Sundaram, and Assistant Vice Chancellor Michael Metzger.
Germany offers one of the world’s strongest higher education systems—renowned for excellence in engineering, environmental sciences, sustainable urban development, and social research. These strengths align closely with UMass Boston’s mission and areas of focus, making our partnerships with German schools both strategic and impactful.
By collaborating with German institutions, we open doors for joint efforts in climate resilience, renewable energy, and public health as well as more exchanges that immerse participants in one of Europe’s most innovative academic cultures.
These efforts are centered on building lasting, multidimensional partnerships—ones that move beyond short-term exchanges to long-term academic collaborations that will benefit our students, faculty, and the communities we serve.
UMass has a long history of partnership with the Hesse region of Germany, having a direct state to state agreement aimed at promoting student mobility between Hesse and Massachusetts. The delegation visited the Technical University Darmstadt (TUD), Goethe University in Frankfurt, and Gutenberg University Mainz. Joint initiatives are to be launched both bilaterally and within the framework of joint projects within the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU) network, a new collaboration for the German institutions.
At TUD, Professor Matthias Oechsner, vice president for research at TU Berlin, and Dr. Jana Freihöfer, head of the international office, welcomed the delegation for talks on expanding scientific cooperation. The delegation visited the LOEWE Center with great interest in emergenCITY . Professor Michèle Knodt presented current projects of the center, which has been researching solutions for resilient digital city infrastructures since 2020, enabling them to withstand crises and disasters. Questions of digital resilience were just one of several areas in which potential for closer collaboration was identified.
At Goethe University, the delegation met with Professor Enrico Schleiff, president of GU, faculty in politics and critical theory, faculty in biochemistry as well as pharmacy, and the Peace Research Institute. Collaboration around nursing practice research linked to pharmaceuticals as well as joint grant opportunities with the Peace Center were discussed.
At Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz, Vice President for Research and Scientific Careers Professor Stefan Müller-Stach took the delegation on an extended session with a physics professor, Dr. Ferdinand Schmidt-Kaler, working in a number of innovative quantum information and technologies area, including ion traps.
Finally, at the University of Bayreuth there were a number of areas of collaboration with UMass Boston discussed, including ecology and environmental sciences; nonlinear dynamics; molecular biosciences; Africa studies and governance & responsibility.
To learn more about these collaborations and how to get involved in them, please contact Executive Director of Global Programs and Senior International Officer Shaun Morgan at shaun.morgan@umb.edu.
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