the mdw’s Long Night of Research activities, coordinated since their beginning in 2016 by the Office of Research Support, have by now developed into a permanent fixture of the University’s event calendar that motivates numerous colleagues to get involved.The mdw’s contributions to LNF2026 provided an impressive demonstration of just how diverse, accessible, and lively the ways are in which the arts and research can be combined.

Since 2023, the mdw has been honouring outstanding papers of these types that pertain to music and the performing arts at large with the “mdw young research award (myra)”. Alongside providing some public recognition for these frequently ambitious papers, the point is to strengthen the connections between our university and schools as well as to lend visibility to disciplines and questions concerning music and other performing arts that interest young people and are also focuses of work at the mdw.

“External science communication” refers to the practice of communicating and lending visibility to research results, protagonists of academic life, and entire research disciplines for the benefit of non-academic audiences of all ages.