Background
On July 1, 2026, Professor Heyo K. Kroemer, Chief Executive Officer of Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin, took over as spokesperson for the Berlin University Alliance (BUA) from Professor Günter M. Ziegler, the president of Freie Universität Berlin. Professor Ziegler just concluded his second term as BUA spokesperson. The leadership transition coincides with a new phase for the alliance. Following a successful evaluation under the German federal and state governments’ Excellence Strategy, the four partner institutions will implement their new joint future concept, “Beyond Boundaries” from 2027 to 2033.

Significance
Berlin University Alliance brings together the academic strengths of Freie Universität Berlin, Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, Technische Universität Berlin, and Charité – Universitätsmedizin Berlin. The Excellence Alliance’s goal is to expand collaboration across institutional and disciplinary boundaries and to further develop Berlin as an internationally recognized hub for science and innovation. The change of spokesperson therefore marks more than a change from one individual to another. It coincides with a phase in which BUA is building on the experience gained during the initial funding period while aiming to further expand collaboration beyond institutional and national boundaries. This is an even greater challenge in times with tighter financial resources and increasing concerns about academic freedom.

Professor Ziegler, the Berlin University Alliance started out with the goal of rethinking collaboration across institutional boundaries. Looking back today, in what areas has BUA exceeded your own expectations?

The structural impact of BUA has been immense. We have not only created structures for collaboration among the three universities and Charité, but we have also brought together non-university research entities now operating as Berlin Research 50 (BR50). We launched a collaborative initiative in the field of knowledge transfer called Science & Startups and expanded it into a Berlin-Brandenburg transfer platform called JUNI. It even includes the business community. That’s quite an achievement!

For a long time in Berlin we “only” had the field of mathematics that served as a model for Berlin-wide collaboration very early on. This collaboration ultimately resulted in the MATH+ Cluster of Excellence. Back in 2019 the idea that entire universities could work together successfully or even operate as a joint alliance was still viewed with skepticism. We were often told it would be a squabble over funding. The reviewers in the Excellence Strategy competition scrutinized very closely whether the collaboration actually existed or whether it was only on paper. Today no one asks questions like that anymore. We have established a Berlin Model for university cooperation, and the rest of the country is looking toward Berlin.

You shaped BUA as spokesperson both during its founding phase and during the past two years. What would you say surprised you the most about the development of the alliance during this time?

The BUA spirit! The initial tentative expectations that it would be “difficult and draining” soon turned into enthusiasm about achieving something worthwhile together. There was not a single, decisive moment, but rather a process through which we gained stability and resilience. That enabled us to overcome even difficult challenges, such as when BUA lost its managing director shortly before the review of the Excellence Strategy research competition. We had to stop and regroup at that point. But we pulled together and achieved a major success in gaining renewed funding.

My grandfather used to like to say about his brood of seven grandchildren, “I started out alone, and now there are so many of us.” With BUA you can see the change in the two different photos of the nights the announcements were made about our success. In 2019, when Freie Universität, Humboldt-Universität, Technische Universität, and Charité became the first German Consortium of Excellence as Berlin University Alliance, the foreground of the photo taken on the Urania stage featured the four heads of the institutions. In 2026, after the second major success, the photo shows a large community celebrating and dancing in the Academy of Arts. You can see so much momentum and enthusiasm among the many university members from all status groups across all the institutions who are committed to shaping and further developing this Consortium of Excellence. These are all people who were instrumental in our successful evaluation and who are now embarking together into the second phase.

What contribution has BUA made to the fact that academics and research in Berlin have a completely different international reputation than they did just a few years ago?

BUA has succeeded in better pooling the diversity and excellence that existed in the “Brain City Berlin” prior to the alliance and in enhancing the global visibility and impact of Berlin as a hub for knowledge and innovation. Irene Tracey, the president of Oxford University, conveyed that impression to the reviewers in the Excellence Strategy research competition. Since science and scholarship operate in a global arena, the advancement of Berlin as a hub of knowledge and innovation through the Excellence alliance represents a major advantage in the competition to attract the brightest minds.

The four partner institutions each bring their own traditions, strengths, and perspectives to BUA. From the perspective of Freie Universität, what was particularly important to you for the development of the alliance?

Freie Universität is a values-based university, or as I now also like to say, a “values-driven university” because that is what gives us energy. Freie Universität is an international network university. Scholarship requires intensive exchange across countries and borders to evolve and to develop in ways that allow it to continue making a societal impact especially in view of global dynamic changes. It is due to international networking that scholarship, but also we ourselves, gain strength and resilience. Freie Universität is also a political university. Ever since the university was founded, it was and continues to be a location for intense social debate, which makes it possible to engage with and influence society in diverse ways. This aspect of the university does not fade or disappear within the alliance. Indeed, these specific perspectives of Freie Universität flow into the alliance and strengthen it.

And conversely: What developments at Freie Universität would have been inconceivable without BUA?

I would say that just as we brought specific topics and perspectives from Freie Universität into the alliance, BUA also helped us to sharpen our profile. For example, our strategic research fields in which we intend to further develop our research landscape, stem from concepts we first established within BUA and Berlin Research 50. These concepts also formed the basis for the research policy strategy of the State of Berlin. Likewise, in the area of knowledge transfer, we would not be so strong or broadly positioned without BUA.

The fact that start-up support at Freie Universität is part of Science & Startups and Science & Startups has become part of JUNI, the start-up factory for science-based and tech start-ups in Berlin and Brandenburg, is a key factor behind our strength and success in this area at Freie Universität.

Collaboration within BUA takes place at many levels today, from joint research projects to support for early-career researchers. Where do you see the most lasting changes?

I see a new model for conducting science: collaborative, interdisciplinary, cross-institutional, spanning the entire spectrum from basic research to application. During their site visit last fall the reviewers attested to BUA’s “significant transformative potential.” They called upon BUA to “assume a leading role in initiating fundamental systemic changes at the national and international levels.”

I share this view, and I am convinced that we will realize this transformative potential by establishing a model that others, too, will want to adopt. Ultimately, everything that we do is designed for sustainability. From developing career paths to the joint open access publisher Berlin Universities Publishing, from knowledge exchange with society and the structures for international cooperation to the shared use of research infrastructures (Sharing Resources): everything is set up to last. In all of these areas there is a great deal of challenging work to be done, entirely in line with this transformative potential.

When the Excellence Consortium was established, there were fears that structures would be duplicated. Since then the Berlin University Alliance has created a range of synergies, for example, the shared use of research infrastructures. Do you think the concerns have been dispelled?

Yes, I do. We are examining very closely what we can do more effectively together and where we can merge structures. That is the opposite of creating redundant structures. Since BUA was founded, the alliance has focused on sharing resources, in particular the shared use of research infrastructures such as expensive large-scale equipment. Unfortunately, recent months have confirmed that this approach was the right one to take. We currently do not know what budget will be available to us for BUA, so we are taking a cautious approach and planning for only about seventy-five percent of the requested budget. Furthermore, in the universities’ core funding the promised increases are failing to keep pace with rising costs, for example, for salaries, energy, and building maintenance.

With the new proposal “Beyond Boundaries” BUA has presented a future concept that views the Berlin research landscape even more strongly as a unified whole. What further steps does this entail?

The 2018 BUA proposal was named “Crossing Boundaries” and focused on collaboration among the four institutions. We already moved far beyond that through our cooperation with non-university research institutions in Berlin, now institutionalized in BR50. The new proposal “Beyond Boundaries” extends the scope to include knowledge transfer to the general public, to the business sector, and the political sphere. It has to do with the resilience of democracy. We have ambitious plans and a great deal of work ahead of us. We only stand a chance if we work together.

If you had to summarize the development of BUA in one sentence: What has emerged in Berlin in the past seven years?

I would say that what has emerged is a strong, highly interconnected, and extremely successful ecosystem consisting of universities, non-university research institutions, the cultural sector, and the business community. It is also a pioneering model with great appeal. The fact that others in Germany also wish to follow this path demonstrates that we are on the right track.

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Jonas Krumbein conducted the interview. The original German version appeared in campus.leben, the online magazine published by Freie Universität Berlin.