The new funding offer "Change of Course – Exploring New Research Territories between the Life Sciences and Science or Engineering" supports concepts aimed at the multidisciplinary training of research groups. Teams who wish to acquire additional qualification can submit funding proposals by January 15, 2019.

In its initiative focussing Central Asia and the Caucasus the Foundation especially supports the capacity development in research and higher education in the region. In Tbilisi, Georgia, 11 postgraduates now benefit from a novel, clearly structured doctoral program.

On September 24, 2018, a cyber attack on the event-portal of the Volkswagen Foundation triggered several mass e-mailings. Personal user data remained protected.

Key criterion for becoming a Freigeist Fellow of the Volkswagen Foundation is the readiness to depart from mainstream research and dedicate oneself to ground-breaking and therefore risk-laden research. Eight early-career researchers recently convinced the Foundation's international review panel with their unconventional project proposals, which they will now implement at universities in different parts of Germany.

The Federal Ministry of Education and Research awards grantees of the Foundation the German-African Innovation Promotion Prize / The Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing continues its commitment to Africa with the ISEE Conference