Dear wir-readers, dear alumni of Freie Universität,

75 years of Freie Universität! That is more than 15 generations of students, countless research projects, outstanding scholars, prominent visitors. But it is also 75 years of detours and new beginnings. Under the motto "75 years of free thinking. Building responsibility. Inspiring change", this birthday will be celebrated throughout the year with various events. It all starts in June - the "month of celebration". On the anniversary page www.fu-berlin.de/en/sites/75jahre you will find all further information. We are also looking forward on behalf of the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft to welcome you to the Dahlem campus in the coming months.

An international institution of our university also has reason to celebrate this year: The "Central Language Center" is 50 years old. After its start as a "language lab", linguistic diversity has been lived here for five decades, students from Germany and abroad have learned languages here, scholars from all over the world have exchanged ideas here. In our cover story, however, we not only tell you how the Language Center is positioning itself for the future, we also show why Chinese is important as a language at Freie Universität, how research is being conducted on rare languages, and what impact artificial intelligence (AI) could have on our language and speech.

Recent results from linguistic research as well as modern AI technologies have also been incorporated into the app "sylby," which the spin-off of the same name from Freie Universität developed with the assistance of linguist Dr. Vera Scholvin. Together with her team, the alumna wants to develop a language training program aimed primarily at improving pronunciation in German.

Things get culinary in the wir-interview: Meteorology professor Dr. Sahar Sodoudi is not pursuing her academic career and now runs the "Dr & Dr Middle Eastern Culture and Food Lab" with her sister. With their doctorates, the twin sisters want to convey Iranian culture - even beyond their own nose.

In this issue, we also take another trip to Düppel and introduce you to two special facilities on the veterinary campus of Freie Universität. At the Small Animal Clinic, Prof. Dr. Barbara Kohn primarily treats dogs and cats - but sometimes a white-tailed eagle is in the practice. The animals Dr. Christoph Lischer cares for are considerably larger. The professor of equine surgery heads the equine clinic. Our visit showed that he needs a lot of tact when dealing with the big four-legged friends: a horse had intestinal colic and had to be operated on quickly and carefully.

Something else on our own behalf: In its anniversary year, the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft is continuing its tried and tested campaign "Half-and-half for whole chances". In this way, we would like to give young people the opportunity to concentrate fully on their studies. You can find out how you can help here.

As always, I hope you enjoy reading this new issue.

Peter Lange

Chairman of the Board of the Ernst-Reuter-Gesellschaft