In his welcome speech, Prof. Dr. Stefan Müller-Stach, Vice President for Research and Early Career Academics at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) emphasized the importance the RMU alliance has for science: “Networking and cooperation across the three universities and across subject areas is the key to innovation and excellence. By pooling competences and adopting new approaches, we are shaping the Rhine-Main region as an integrated, globally attractive and competitive region of science.”

The conference offered a varied program that gave the participating VARM partners the opportunity to present their joint projects, with a particular focus on research initiatives involving several cooperation partners within the network. VARM spokesman Prof. Dr. Wicke highlighted the successes and future prospects of the network: “With VARM, we created a platform that brings together scientists from different archaeological disciplines and institutions. There are not many regions in Germany with such a high number of institutions and researchers active in or for archeology. We must make use of this and allow everyone to profit from this.”

The event was also a testament to the close connection between the RMU alliance and VARM. Joint networks such as VARM not only contribute to strengthening research, but also help intensify the exchange among scientists in the Rhine-Main region. The response generated by the annual conference shows the immense interest in this type of cooperation – which has already successfully been put into practice in various joint research projects.

The next annual VARM conference is planned to take place in 2025 at Goethe University Frankfurt. It will be exciting to see which topics and developments will be the focus then.