Current news

The danger of broken bonds

Author of a new study showing that humans disturb the social lives of wild giraffes. Damien Farine discusses why disrupted relationships may be a silent killer for social species—even one of the world’s most recognizable animals.

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Students stand up to stress in the time of corona

Lisa-Marie Walther and Alisa Auer redirect their PhD research to tackle one of the most pertinent issues of the pandemic: stress in response to the coronavirus crisis. “This is a chance to investigate stress in the collective in an extraordinary moment in history.”

Getting to the root of locust plagues

Konstanz collective behaviour researchers are traveling to Kenya to study movement and decision-making of locusts in the current swarms—generating fundamental insights for predicting future outbreaks

Immune to influence

Psychologists from the Centre for the Advanced Study of Collective Behaviour--Helge Giese, Hans Neth, and Wolfgang Gaissmaier--provide the first rigorous look at how our attitudes towards vaccines are shaped by online forces. Turns out, social influence plays a small role.

Konstanz scientists among the world's most influential

In the last decade, papers by Iain Couzin and Damine Farine have ranked among the most highly cited by scientists across multiple fields—signalling the impact of interdisciplinary collective behaviour research on the broader scientific discussions of our time.

Complex society discovered in birds

The first existence of a multilevel society in a non-mammalian animal shows that large brains are not a requirement for complex societies

"A Stork’s Journey" Takes Flight

We honoured World Migratory Bird Day with a celebration of storks—from interactive activities to the world premiere of animated short film “A Stork’s Journey” produced by PositiveNegatives.

VCC topped out

New milestone for the Center for Visual Computing of Collectives (VCC): On 10 October 2019, representatives from the University of Konstanz, Vermögen and Bau Baden-Württemberg (Amt Konstanz) as well as the mayor of the City of Konstanz celebrated the traditional roofing ceremony for the new research building ZT (VCC).