Under the guidance of the Centre for Water and Environmental Research (ZWU), water experts from UDE chairs in the natural and engineering sciences, medicine, humanities and social sciences, together with colleagues from associated institutes and the UA Ruhr as well as partners from society, politics and industry address one of the greatest challenges of our time. Water is a precious resource and valuable habitat, especially in the face of the increasing water scarcity due to climate change and pollution of water resources. ZWU members are involved in various inter- and transdisciplinary projects dealing amongst others with water treatment technologies, biodiversity, and the impacts of extreme weather events.

The profile focus Biomedical Sciences at the UDE links basic research in the natural sciences at the Essen Campus with clinical research at the University Hospital in Essen. It comprises the Center for Medical Biotechnology (ZMB) and the Erwin L. Hahn Institute, a cross-university interdisciplinary research institution for the study and application of magnetic resonance imaging (MRI) in neuroscience and in medical diagnostics and therapy. Active networking among the research groups promotes and enables the development of ideas and innovations through cooperations and diverse, joint interdisciplinary projects.

Nanotechnology makes it possible to discover - and use - new properties in materials that have supposedly been known for a long time. At UDE, the Center for Nanointegration Duisburg-Essen (CENIDE) represents the corresponding profile focus. CENIDE offers access to state-of-the-art infrastructure, such as the unique research building NanoEnergieTechnikZentrum (NETZ) and the Interdisciplinary Center for Analytics on the Nanoscale (ICAN). It supports its members and partners from science and industry in establishing and coordinating research collaborations. The inspiring research environment attracts high potentials and offers students and young scientists an ideal basis for their further development.

In one of Europe's largest metropolitan areas, engineering, economic, natural and social scientists are concerned with the future of urban systems and are working on viable concepts for the sustainable development of human living space in the context of structural change. For this purpose, ecological, economic and sociological perspectives must be brought together and translated into politically feasible strategies. The integration of city and traffic, mobility behavior in passenger and freight transport, waste and traffic management sensibly integrated into urban structures, or the reliable determination of water quality are some of the keywords under which numerous working groups bundle their activities.

The transformation of contemporary societies is essentially a reaction to phenomena of dissolution of boundaries. Phenomena of the dissolution of boundaries with considerable consequences for the development of world society can also be found in so-called fragile societies that have not developed such a system of institutions or have lost it in the course of political upheavals. We observe phenomena of the dissolution of boundaries both "outwardly" and "inwardly". Phenomena of dissolution of boundaries lead to a loss of influence of established social institutions and create a need for new order formation. The aim of the profile focus is to explore new forms of order formation in bounded circumstances.