Friday, January 23
On January 13, 2026, the Berlin University of the Arts (UdK Berlin) announced the dissolution of the MA Sound Studies and Sonic Arts programme. An immediate admission freeze was put in place for the 2026 academic year.
It is part of the closure of all Master’s programmes at the Central Institute for Continuing Education and Transfer (ZIWT). The UdK is struggling with significant budget cuts, but the reason given for the closure was its adaption of university structures to the amended Berlin Higher Education Act.
UdK Berlin is Europe’s largest art university, and it claims to cover the entire range of the arts in its 70 degree programmes. But this closure means that the university will lose an entire discipline, and Berlin will lose the only university-level degree in sonic art, a field that is important to the sound art and experimental electronic music scene of the city.
The now discontinued Master’s has been in existence for twenty years, as a guiding force for artistic research, theoretical discourse, innovative pedagogy and international exchange. Its graduates have been presented work at prestigious Berlin institutors including the Berlinale, Hamburger Bahnhof, Deutsche Oper and Berliner Philharmonie.
Now, a petition with (currently) over 1,300 signatures is fighting to save the MA Sound Studies and Sonic Arts programme in an appeal to the UdK to “fulfil its responsibility as a player in the cultural ecosystem of this city and beyond!” They state, “Once dissolved, this established structure of knowledge transfer and artistic excellence cannot be restored!”
