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Again, the collaborative efforts of private Jacobs University to-be and state-run University of Bremen proved to be successful in the first decision of this year’s federal Excellence Initiative: Two graduate schools, in which both universities participate, the »Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences« (BIGSSS), and the »Multi-Scale Design of Functional Hybrid Materials and Devices«, made the final round. This was announced by the German Research Foundation and the German Science Council on January 12, 2007, in Bonn.
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Joachim Treusch, president of Jacobs University: »We are very happy that the two graduate schools were selected from this year’s broad field of applicants. The jury’s decision corroborates the outstanding quality of two different fields of expertise here in Bremen, the Humanities and Social Sciences as well as the Material Sciences, which by the successful collaboration of chief local science institutions will permit excellent research and teaching of international visibility in Bremen.« Jacobs University has every reason to be proud of having reached this success within the excellence initiative as the only private university in Germany and being in academic operation for only five years, Treusch continued. »Our congratulations go to the University of Bremen, which again proved to be successful with in total four proposals of good perspectives within the Excellence Initiative. We are looking forward to the cooperation with our partner university within a strong team.«
The umbrella theme of the »Bremen International Graduate School of Social Sciences« (BIGSSS) is »The Future of Social and Political Integration«. The English-language program of the Graduate School is designed to comprise in total six main themes from the political and social sciences as well as social and developmental psychology. A center for methods in the social sciences will round out the program. With psychologist and methods expert Klaus Boehnke, Jacobs University provides one of the vice deans and will also be responsible for designing and organizing the research and teaching focuses »Attitude Formation, Value Orientations and Cultural Change« and »Life Course Dynamics« as well as the methods center. Furthermore, numerous scientists from Jacobs University will contribute to research and teaching. Coordinator of the BIGSSS proposal on behalf of the University of Bremen was sociologist and BIGSSS future vice dean Karin Gottschall. Sociologist Steffen Mau, also of University of Bremen, will be dean.
The graduate school »Multi-Scale Design of Functional Hybrid Materials and Devices« will focus on the field of functional composite materials and components as well as their production. The innovative research approach defines the desired properties of the materials macroscopically and then induces the necessary structure, composition, and production on the microscopic level. Under the lead of the University of Bremen the graduate school will join additional scientists from Jacobs University as well as the Bremen Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Applied Materials Research.
The universities, which were selected in the first round of this year’s Excellence Initiative, will submit full proposals until April 13. The final decision about the federal grants will be made on October 19, 2007.
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The Excellence Initiative |
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The Excellence Initiative was set up last year by the German government and the federal states. It provides three supporting funds: »Graduate Schools«, »Excellence Cluster« and »Future Concepts«. Until the year 2011 1.9 billion euros will be available to internationally accentuate the excellence of German research and to stimulate a quality-oriented competition among German universities.
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