???aural:Bildanfang??????Großansicht des Bildes???Professor Dr. Detlef Löhe, Vice President for Research and Information at KIT. © KIT???aural:Bildende???

The Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) represents the merger between the University of Karlsruhe (TH) and the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe GmbH. As one of Germany's nine universities of excellence joins with one of the largest Helmholtz centres in Germany, this merger represents the most far-reaching approach towards the consolidation of university and non-university based research.

With approximately 8,000 employees and an annual budget of around 700 million euro, KIT has the personnel and financial backing to become one of the world’s leading institutes in selected areas of research. KIT was officially established as a legal entity on 1 October 2009.

The following interview with Prof. Dr. Detlef Löhe, Vice President for Research and Information at KIT, provides insights into the background and future perspectives of what is to become one of Europe's largest top-ranking research facilities.

The fusion of a university with a major research institute has never happened in Germany before. What goals and visions do you hope to achieve as a result of the merger?

The KIT vision is to join the league of world-leading institutions of engineering and natural sciences. At KIT we combine the mission of a research university with that of a national research centre. We have developed instruments and structures to considerably increase our performance regarding three tasks: research, higher education and innovation. Our goals at KIT are to attract the best minds in the world, set new standards in teaching and promoting young scientific talents, become Europe’s leading centre for energy research, play a globally visible role in nanosciences and act as a key innovation partner for business. Already KIT is a visible new structure in the German and European science landscape and we’re working on increasing our visibility internationally.

What role did research-political developments like the Excellence Initiative play in the decision to merge?

The idea of KIT was the result of 50 years of strong partnership between the university and the Forschungszentrum (research centre) Karlsruhe. The Excellence Initiative provided the necessary driving force to overcome many obstacles and to initiate required political and legal processes. It also created effective momentum for speeding up and supporting the merging process in terms of funding. We are now in the position to become more involved in the way research-political decisions are made.

???aural:Bildanfang??????Großansicht des Bildes???Researchers at KIT. © KIT???aural:Bildende???

How do you plan to re-organize the focus of the research areas, i.e., the research and instruction activities from the University of Karlsruhe and the programme-oriented research efforts at the Forschungszentrum?

We started out with two very different cultures and systems of research funding. The university maintained a diverse research landscape and a multitude of projects, while at the Forschungszentrum, research was structured along the lines of the long-term, strategic programme-oriented funding scheme of the Helmholtz Association. In order to interweave the two systems and to bring the scientists together, several new joint research structures have been established. The competence portfolio, for example, is a bottom-up approach to bring scientists together on cross-disciplinary platforms to enable a better exchange of ideas and the creation of new projects. On the other hand, the KIT-Centres and KIT-Focuses, internationally visible landmarks of science, apply a top-down approach. One example is the KIT-Centre for Energy, which represents one of the largest centres for energy research in Europe with over 1,100 staff and a research budget well exceeding 100 million euro per year.

Universities in Germany are financed by the German states, while major research facilities like the Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe, which also belongs to the Helmholtz Association, receive most of their funding from the federal government. What other administrative challenges had to be solved before merging?

Due to the German constitution, the federal government is not allowed to directly support higher education. Therefore, the budgets have to be kept separate between both missions. However, this is a familiar task for institutions extensively using third-party funding. In all other terms, the merger is complete. KIT will have one strategy, one executive board, one senate, one supervisory board and one administration. Realizing a merger of this magnitude in a relatively short time span is an enormous task which could not have been achieved without the strong support and dedication of our excellent staff.

How did the employees contribute to the process?

KIT is the result of a huge common effort by hundreds of colleagues. The KIT idea is very much supported by academic and non-academic staff alike. We made a conscious effort to structure the merging process with common working groups for specific areas. This encouraged people from the university and the research centre to get to know each other better by working towards the same goal. Open discussions about the process itself were also very helpful.

How will the merger influence the international orientation of KIT, for example, in terms of international cooperation and new opportunities for young scientists?

KIT already is much more visible than both partners have been in the past. It seeks to intensify its collaboration with existing and new international partners in academia and industry in order to excel in research, higher education and innovation. KIT wants to attract the best minds in the world and offers attractive opportunities on all career levels. Already about 19% of our students and about 16% of our employees come from abroad.

More information can be found at www.kit.edu/english/