The Future Campus is a space of academic freedom. In order to tackle the complex challenges of our time together with our partners reaching beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines, we promote intellectual creativity and the originality of high-quality, forward-looking research projects in three clusters at our Future Campus.

Scientific excellence also requires responsible action – not only in the application of newly acquired knowledge, but also with regard to the chosen research questions. We therefore see our freedom as an obligation to address current political, economic, cultural, religious and environmental issues and to actively contribute our knowledge and expertise to shaping a sustainable society.

The Future Campus is a space for international encounter. In more than 40 years, the KU has developed an excellent network with more than 300 partner universities worldwide. This network forms the basis for an international, multilingual campus culture in order to engage in an open and lively exchange with people all over the world and in the region – and to develop the urgently needed ideas for a world worth living for tomorrow.

Being a University with a strong focus on the humanities and social sciences, one of our strengths is learning for the future from the events of the past. At the same time, we are strengthening our potential at the Future Campus in order to anticipate future developments in various areas of society and to design liveable futures for a good life.

The Future Campus is a driving force for sustainable development. As a University, we have been consistently implementing the goals of sustainability in research, teaching, knowledge transfer and governance for two decades. We have repeatedly received national and international awards for our commitment and holistic approach. With the Future Campus, we want to inspire people to join us in making a contribution to a successful sustainability transformation.

Equitable and democratic participation of all people is particularly important to us. As a University, we therefore explicitly promote the recognition and respect of social diversity and solidarity. This is precisely why the Future Campus offers particularly favorable conditions for critical reflection on current discourses as well as for the promotion of diverse and inclusive communities.

Research into social transformation processes towards sustainability will be one of the core topics at the Future Campus. The "Sustainable Futures" is designed as a University-wide platform for interlinking research activities, teaching and knowledge transfer in order to address current challenges in an interdisciplinary manner. By systematically integrating approaches and findings from the humanities and social sciences as well as from the natural sciences, we aim to take account of the complex interrelationships that arise between humans and the environment in the age of the Anthropocene. New insights into the effects of climate change, the sustainable development of ecosystems and human-environment conflicts are intended to help shape the coexistence of humans with animate and inanimate nature in a sustainable way. By concentrating research activities in Ingolstadt and Eichstätt, we are pursuing the goal of being actively involved in relevant national and international research programs and sustainability networks.

In order to better address and analyze the changes in our societies caused by the advancing digitalization in research and teaching, one of the tasks of the digitalization cluster will be to build on the scientific expertise at both KU locations and deal with the opportunities and risks of digitalization. As a committed University, we assume responsibility for connecting technological progress to social change in order to identify possible challenges beyond the boundaries of individual disciplines, identify potential risks and develop a contribution for a human-centered digital society from a scientific perspective. Within the framework of the cluster, it is therefore important to make use of the opportunities offered by digitalization, but also to identify areas of conflict, ensure inclusion and participation in the possibilities offered by new digital technologies, and contribute to shaping social coexistence under the conditions of digitalization in a constructive, fair, and socially balanced manner.

Our present times are characterized by far-reaching changes that raise the question of how science can play an active role in shaping them. The conscious shaping of these processes requires not only detailed knowledge of social systems, transformation paths and personal skills, but also a high level of expertise in the development of appropriately justified objectives and visions of the future. The associated challenges influence the values and orientations that exist in our societies as well as the social and cultural prerequisites for transformation, such as technical infrastructures, established lifestyles and social practices. In order to adequately address the ethical reflection of social orientations and new technologies, the competence cluster pools knowledge and expertise from research areas such as philosophy and ethics, history, social and political science, theology, economics and communication science across disciplines.