Bowyer received the Humboldt Foundation of Germany Senior Scientist Award in 1982.

According to the 2005 Humboldt Ranking, measuring the number of research stays by foreign fellows and award winners sponsored by the Humboldt Foundation, Freiburg placed second in the life sciences.

Similarly, faculty members have received many national and international fellowships, including awards from the Guggenheim Foundation, Fulbright Program, National Endowment for the Humanities, and Humboldt Foundation.

He maintains affiliations with the Humboldt Foundation and the US Holocaust Memorial Museum, and sits on the editorial board of Kirchliche Zeitgeschichte, an important German journal.

The German Government awarded him the great service medal with star in 1981, and he was president of the Humboldt Foundation, which organizes international academic exchanges from 1979 to 1989.

He subsequently studied for a doctorate in philosophy at Oxford and the University of Tübingen in Germany, where he was a Research Fellow of the Humboldt Foundation.

He received a fellowship from the Humboldt Foundation between 1982 and 1984.

US sponsors are being sought among the various private research foundations, but according to Reimar Lüst, president of the Humboldt Foundation, 'there is no hurry, the council has enough money to get started'.

He was chosen as the Alexander Humboldt Fellow of the prestigious Humboldt Foundation of Germany.

The Humboldt Foundation ranks the University of Bonn fifth in the humanities and social sciences, sixth in the life sciences and seventh in science.