Cognitive sciences represent one of four main research areas of the University of Potsdam. The university's Research Focus Cognitive Sciences (RFCS) unites scientists from different faculties. In interdisciplinary research teams, researchers from psychology, linguistics and philosophy as well as from sports and health sciences, mathematics, physics and computer scientists work closely together.

Prominent examples of the intensive successful cooperation are the two Collaborative Research Centres currently funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG): "The Limits of Variability in Language" and "Data Assimilation".

Other projects of the RFCS are concerned with eye movements in reading and image comprehension, cognitive processes in language disorders or multilingualism, early childhood cognitive and linguistic development, affective learning and memory processes, or the tension between cognitive processes and physical movement.