Post by Florian Kohstall

It was a great honor to travel with President Günter M. Ziegler and such a distinguished delegation of FUB professors, including Beatrice Gründler, Cilja Harders, Christian Ludwig, Maria Kristina Parr and Florian Zemmin, to Cairo. Sixteen years ago we opened our Freie Universität Berlin liaison office in Cairo. In this 16 years I often felt we live history in the making. Through our presence in Cairo we have established many new university partnerships in Egypt and the Middle East and, together with our partners, we have made countless student and researcher exchanges possible. As my colleague Hoda El Mahgoub put it, academic exchange can be a life-changing experience. Visiting our partners - Cairo University, The American University in Cairo and The German University in Cairo - was not only a big "thank you" for the confidence and trust we built in the past 16 years, but also a call for even more cooperation. Not sure if we are "built for eternity", but in times of geopolitical disruptions we can be very proud of our long-lasting scientific cooperation across different scientific fields, student exchange and a very fruitful transnational dialogue.