The Department of Geosciences at the University of Cologne deals with essential questions of the geosciences, such as climate change, hazard research, structure and development of the earth and of life. In recent years, the Department has focused its research on the topic of "Environmental Dynamics and Global Change". Currently, the majority of the current projects can be assigned to the following research fields, which are usually carried out across institutes within the department.

• Human-Environment-Research
• Land surface-Atmosphere-Interaction, exploration of the subsurface with non-invasive methods
• Paleoclimate and Paleoenvironment Research, Geochronology (ESL, TL, AMS), Palaeomagnetics
• Physics, chemistry and temporal development of the solar system and the earth
• Materials research