Humboldt kosmosHumboldt kosmos 100 /2013 7 All Erin Maxwell had intended to do at Stuttgart State...

the AlexAnder von humboldt FoundAtion – 60 yeArs

A Journey Through Time

DeuTsche Version:BiTTe wenDen

Humboldt kosmosNo. 100 / 2013 Research | Diplomacy | Internationality

WhAt We thought We kneW

Six decades of hopes and errors in researchArchAeology

Why grave robbers should fear Google

2 Humboldt kosmos 100 /2013

Research for developmentUp to 80 Georg Forster Research Fellowships (HERMES) annually for highly qualifi ed researchers from developing and emerging countries

With the Georg Forster Research Fellowships (HERMES), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provides support for postdoctoral and experienced researchers from developing and emerging countries (excluding China and India) to carry out research projects with an academic host in Germany.

Projects of relevance to development are eligible for sponsorship. There are no quotas for specifi c subjects or countries of origin. Applicants are free to choose their research projects as well as their collaborative partners in Germany. Any academic actively working at a German research institution can become a host.

Postdoctoral researchers may apply for a period of 6 to 24 months, experienced researchers for a period of 6 to 18 months (which can be divided into three stays).

Fellows receive 2,650 EUR and 3,150 EUR per month respectively, plus extensive additional benefi ts such as intensive language courses, family allowances, subsidies towards a pension plan and fl exible alumni sponsorship.

For detailed information please visit:www.humboldt-foundation.de/georgforster

Exzellenz verbindet –be part of a worldwide network.

The programme is fi nanced by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and – subject to fi nal confi rmation– co-fi nanced by the EU in the 7th Framework Programme.

AvH_13_011_Anzeigenadaption Forster_eng_210x280_rz_1.1.indd 1 24.06.13 16:40

3Humboldt kosmos 100 /2013

Research for developmentUp to 80 Georg Forster Research Fellowships (HERMES) annually for highly qualifi ed researchers from developing and emerging countries

With the Georg Forster Research Fellowships (HERMES), the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation provides support for postdoctoral and experienced researchers from developing and emerging countries (excluding China and India) to carry out research projects with an academic host in Germany.

Projects of relevance to development are eligible for sponsorship. There are no quotas for specifi c subjects or countries of origin. Applicants are free to choose their research projects as well as their collaborative partners in Germany. Any academic actively working at a German research institution can become a host.

Postdoctoral researchers may apply for a period of 6 to 24 months, experienced researchers for a period of 6 to 18 months (which can be divided into three stays).

Fellows receive 2,650 EUR and 3,150 EUR per month respectively, plus extensive additional benefi ts such as intensive language courses, family allowances, subsidies towards a pension plan and fl exible alumni sponsorship.

For detailed information please visit:www.humboldt-foundation.de/georgforster

Exzellenz verbindet –be part of a worldwide network.

The programme is fi nanced by the Federal Ministry for Economic Cooperation and Development (BMZ) and – subject to fi nal confi rmation– co-fi nanced by the EU in the 7th Framework Programme.

AvH_13_011_Anzeigenadaption Forster_eng_210x280_rz_1.1.indd 1 24.06.13 16:40

humboldtiAns in privAte

in this picture we’re all still able to laugh and wave. Later, on the infamous Col du Tourmalet, we found it rather harder to force

a smile. The photo shows us on the Tour de France last summer. Not the proper, professional race, of course. As part of the official Tour, the organisers hold two races for anyone who relishes the opportunity to test their mettle on one of the professional stages. These races attract amateurs from around the world. We had chosen the tough, 200-kilometre mountain stage in the Pyrenees. We arrived in Pau before sunrise, together with 8,000 other cycling enthusiasts. The forecast for Tourmalet was for drizzle; what came down was freezing rain. And I had lost my jacket on the way! Which isn’t meant to be an excuse for the fact that I saw the other two from behind as they crossed the finishing line. By the time we reached the valley we were completely exhausted and frozen through. All the riders just hunkered down wrapped in these gold-coloured foil blankets looking like hundreds of little steaming pyramids – a sight we’ll never forget. In all, we spent five days travelling in the Pyrenees; first we explored the mountains, then came the race. We

The Three of us on The Tour De frAnce

were like a monastic brotherhood: during the day we trained, in the evenings we discussed our research. We’d all met at Indiana University where Colin and I conduct research and Carlos did his doctorate. To get to the Tour, Colin and I met up in Germany and spent two days driving through France. We had a laptop in the car which we used to write a joint article that will soon be published. Carlos and Colin spent the Tour thinking up a few conferences they plan to organise together. So the Tour was not just a marvel-lous sporting experience, but also academically very productive for us. Who knows, perhaps we’ll see other Humboldtians there next year. Fritz breithAupt

Philosopher proFessor dr. colin Allen (right) and German lan-guage and literature scholar proFessor dr. Fritz breithAupt (left) are Humboldt Alumni who conduct research at Indiana University Bloomington, USA. dr. cArlos zednik (centre) is a cognitive scien-tist currently working at the University of Osnabrück on a Humboldt Research Fellowship.

Photo: Maindru Photo


focus

A Journey Through Time12 That Humboldt feeling

Enno Aufderheide and Heinrich Pfeiffer discuss the secret of the Humboldt family’s success

16 A journey through time 60 years of Foundation history on fast forward

18 A network for Europe The Humboldt Foundation as a blueprint for Europe? A talk with Helmut Schwarz

22 What we thought we knew Precise predictions and disappointed dreams from six decades of research

16

contentseditoriAl

Dear Readers,

In this issue we would like to invite you to join us on a journey through time. Let us take you back sixty years to 1953, the year in which the Humboldt Foundation was launched. Back then, the moon landing was little more than

a pipe dream, pacemakers and the contraceptive pill had not yet been invented, and particle accelerators, smartphones and the Internet were at best science fiction. These are just a few examples to show how much progress science has made since then and how quickly the world has changed. That the fundamental idea underlying the Foundation and the tools it intro-duced in its early years are still so relevant and so successful today is all the more astounding. It is no coincidence that the images of the first Humboldtians who came to Germany in those days and were wel-comed in Bonn have a timeless quality. Fashions and hairstyles may have changed a few times since then, but other than that, the photos might just as well be of today’s fellows visiting the Foundation or gathered in the Federal President’s garden during the annual meeting. Of course, the Foundation itself has also continued to evolve and respond to the changing times, from the post-war period and the Cold War through the rapid growth of the 1960s to the invention of the culture of welcome; from establishing million-euro awards in response to the growing international competition for the brightest minds to the Foundation’s engagement in Europe. Read more about the challenges of the past and those facing us as we head into the future – the focus of this issue.

Happy reading!

Georg SchollEditor in Chief


close up on reseArch28 The ant man

A luminary in ant research for fifty years – a portrait of Bernd Hölldobler

34 neWs

the FAces oF the FoundAtion36 A who’s who of the people behind the scenes

at the Humboldt Foundation

humboldtiAns in privAte03 The three of us on the Tour de France

brieF enQuiries06 What moves researchers and what they are currently

investigating

vieW onto germAny24 I like you despite the weather

A love letter to the Ruhr

18 28

1206

imprint

humboldt kosmos 100publisher: Alexander von Humboldt Foundationeditor in chieF: Georg Scholl (responsible)editing: Ulla Hecken, Georg SchollAdditionAl editing: Kristina Güroff, Regine Laroche, Sandra Schulmeister, Dr. Barbara Sheldon, Barbara Wieners-Horst

english trAnslAtions: DELTA International CITS GmbH, Dr. Lynda Lich-KnightArt direction: Hanauer Grafik Design, Frankfurt am MainAppeAring: twice a yearcirculAtion oF this issue: 38,000printer: Druckpartner Moser GmbH, Rheinbach

Address: Alexander von Humboldt-StiftungRedaktion Humboldt kosmosJean-Paul-Straße 1253173 Bonn, [email protected], www.humboldt-foundation.deISSN 0344-0354


brieF enQuiries


All Erin Maxwell had intended to do at Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History was view its extensive collection of ichthyo-saurs. But then the 31-year-old made a sensational discovery in the museum’s archives: a crate of dinosaur bones that had sat there unnoticed for almost four decades. The bones, it turned out, belonged not just to a new species, but to a whole new genus of ichthyosaur. “It was really cool,” says the Canadian researcher recalling the moment when she realised what she was seeing. “Palaeontologists don’t experience some-thing like that very often.” Maxwell, who specialises in ichthyo-saurs, had already discovered and described two new species during fieldwork in Canada. “It’s much better to work in the field than in the lab,” she had always thought, so she was all the more surprised to discover a previouly unknown dinosaur in a box in the archives. The fossil with its 1.6 metre skull and an impres-sive set of sharp teeth had been found and recovered from a clay pit by geology students 37 years previously, and then forgotten. Experts consider the discovery extraordinary because it throws a new light on the development and prevalence of ichthyosaurs. The skeleton was found in a sediment layer of the Opalinus clay forma-tion deposited approximately 170 to 175 million years ago. Ear-lier finds date back some 182 million years – so the new discovery closes a seven-million-year gap in worldwide ichthyosaur finds.

klAus eichmüller

Palaeontologist dr. erin mAxWell completed her doctorate at the Université de Montréal, Canada. From 2010 to 2012, a Humboldt Research Fellowship brought her to Stuttgart State Museum of Natural History and Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin.

How did you discover the dino in the box?

Photo: Oliver Rüther


brieF enQuiries

Why should grave robbers fear Google?

Looters and grave robbers are destroying the traces of our ancestors. Many antiquities are lost to research, sold instead through murky channels into the hands of private collectors. Daniel Contreras is using the Internet to combat this plunder. One look at a site like Bab edh-Dhra’, a Bronze Age burial ground in Jordan, shows the damage that looters and grave robbers can do. Looting pits as far as the eye can see. Many archaeologically significant sites around the world present a similar picture. One of the greatest obstacles in the fight against grave robbers is that governments ignore the issue, claiming insufficient evidence. “Images on Google Earth are now proving the extent of the damage caused by looters,” explains Contreras. Together with a colleague, he has developed an online project at Stanford Univer-sity that uses Google Earth to gather information from Internet

users about further looting. The freely available satellite images clearly indicate where landscapes have been disturbed by digging. “Our aim is both to document the true extent of the damage and to raise awareness among the public,” says Contreras. “Only if we succeed will we be able to continue exploring the history of humanity in the future.” JirkA niklAs menke

At Stanford University in the USA dr. dAniel A. contrerAs investi-gates how human societies lived in the Neolithic Age and what impact the change from being hunter-gatherers to settled farmers had on the landscape. He is currently working as a Humboldt Research Fellow at the Institute for Ecosystem Research at Kiel University.

Photo: Barbara Dom

browski


How can a self-driving car change the world?

Pretty much anyone who watched TV in the 1980s will remem-ber K.I.T.T., the intelligent car from the American science fiction series “Knight Rider”, but many would find it unimagin-able that such a vehicle could actually ever exist. Not so Sebastian Thrun. The computer specialist’s main interest is in intelligent robotic systems that can move independently – autonomous vehicles, for example. Thrun runs Google’s “Driv-erless Car” project and is thus a leading member of the team responsible for developing the Google car, which has already been approved for test drives in three US states. But how can a car like that change the world? “Our aim is to make computer-controlled vehicles much more reliable in order to drastically reduce the number of road traffic accidents resulting from human error. And a more efficient style of driving also has a positive effect on traffic

flow and fuel consumption,” says Thrun. Apart from improving transportation, there is another important aspect to the project: “The car offers people with limited physical mobility a chance to significantly increase their quality of life.” regine lAroche

proFessor dr. sebAstiAn thrun heads a research group at Stanford AI Laboratory in the USA and also works on various Google projects: in addition to the self-driving car, he is involved in the devel-opment of digital glasses. He is a co-founder of the online university Udacity. In 2011, he received the Max Planck Research Award, granted by the Humboldt Foundation and the Max Planck Society.

Photo: private


brieF enQuiries

How does a culture survive without writing?

When Margarita Valdovinos first visited the Cora Indians in their remote homeland in the mountains of western Mexico, she was immediately fascinated by the unique culture of this indig-enous people. The Cora are descended from the Aztecs, and continue to follow many ancient traditions and their own religion that combines pre-colonial beliefs with the Catholicism imported by the Span-ish. “Like many indigenous cultures, the Cora, of whom only about 20,000 remain, are under threat from our modern way of life,” says Valdovinos. For the last 16 years, she has visited Jesús María, the largest Cora settlement, as part of her research. In addi-tion to Spanish, the Cora speak a language of their own which has no written form; they rely on oral traditions. “The Cora preserve their knowledge and their history in songs and myths, prayers

and poetry. That’s why the celebrations and rituals that take place on over two hundred days a year are so important,” explains the ethnologist. She wants to know how especially the language, but also dances and gestures hold the community together. To find the answer, she collaborates closely with the Cora. “Both sides benefit from my work,” says Valdovinos. “I learn a lot and immerse myself deeply in their lives, and the Cora suddenly see their culture in a completely new light. This engenders a new interest in their tradi-tions as well as pride in their own identity, and most importantly, a desire to preserve their own culture.” georg scholl

dr. mArgAritA vAldovinos worked at the University of Texas at Austin, before becoming a Humboldtian. She is now conducting research at the Ibero-American Institute and the Ethnological Museum in Berlin.

Photo: Michael D

anner


Who were the barbarians who, according to Roman sources, invaded northern Italy and threatened Rome itself in the sixth century? Where did tribes like the Longobards come from? Did they displace the Roman population, or did they mix with it? Did they come in wild hordes or in small groups? Historians have so far been unable to tell us with any certainty. With the help of state-of-the-art genetic analysis, American histo-rian Patrick Geary and his team of geneticists, archaeologists and anthropologists are now seeking new answers. One of their most important sources are DNA analyses of bones and teeth from burial sites. “Until recently, it was difficult to analyse material that was many hundreds of years old. We have only had the necessary technology, next-generation DNA sequencing, for a short while,” says Geary. Carefully interpreted and considered in conjunction

with written and archaeological sources, the finds will allow deep insights into the society of the period. Was it, for example, mostly men who headed for distant lands and found themselves new wives there? Or were the bonds with their wives so close that they set off for Italy together as families? Were seemingly entirely dif-ferent cultural groups actually closely related to each other? Geary is excited about the possibilities opened up by genetic history research: “It has the potential to radically alter our understanding of the changes that took place in the Roman Empire at that time.”

georg scholl

proFessor dr. pAtrick J. geAry is a researcher at the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton, USA. As an Anneliese Maier Research Award Winner he cooperates with Heidelberg University.

Photo: Oliver Rüther

What secrets are hidden in the genes of the Longobards?


ThAT humBolDT feeling

Interview: georg scholl | Photos: oliver rüther

One has been associated with the Foundation since its beginnings, the other leads it today. Heinrich Pfeiffer and Enno Aufderheide discuss the past and the present, fellows’ meetings and mnemonic tricks, German beer and Coca Cola, and the secret of the Humboldt family’s success.


Focus


kosmos: Dr. Pfeiffer, you served as Secretary General of the Foundation for almost forty years. Which personal encounters do you remember particularly fondly?pFeiFFer: I fear that might somewhat exceed the scope of this interview …

Please, choose at least one encounter …pFeiFFer: All right. An incident I remember especially well is our meeting with the very first Humboldtians from the People’s Republic of China. They arrived together, 32 of them, at Frankfurt

Airport. So we drove over there and picked them up. We had ordered decent beer, a few sandwiches. The Chinese were all wearing regulation Chairman Mao suits and caps, we were in dark suits. We greeted each other and I said, “May I invite you to the hotel for some refreshments after your long flight?” They walked into the dining room, saw the bottles of beer, and unanimously chorused, “Coca Cola”, because Coke wasn’t available in China then. That was a bit of a disappointment. I thought German beer was some-thing special that would go down well. Instead they drank Coca Cola by the bottle; we could barely keep it coming fast enough. >



Focus

When you took office, the Foundation was just three years old. What can you tell us about those early days so soon after the war?pFeiFFer: Germany’s past was initially a great burden for us. From 1953, researchers started coming here from countries like Poland, places that Germany had invaded just a few years earlier. Many fellows came with mixed feelings. I had experienced those reserva-tions myself when I went to Sweden on a fellowship after the war, and from there to the United States. People frequently avoided me because I was German. Building trust and sympathy, being human and per-sonal was our main task then and remains so to this day.

Dr. Aufderheide, the post-war period and the division of Europe are long past. Today, research funding is also about locational advantages and

international competition. How important is the idea of international understanding nowadays?AuFderheide: It’s true that the Humboldt Founda-tion and its role have changed since the end of the Cold War. But sponsorship and understanding are still two sides of the same coin for us, because today’s world isn’t really all that much more peaceful. There is conflict everywhere. And all that potentially involves prejudice or tension between nationals of enemy states who meet on neutral ground here in Germany. So international understanding remains important.

Today’s researchers are more mobile than ever. What difference can a stay in Germany still make these days?AuFderheide: Mobility has become more common-place. But the Humboldtians of recent years assure us that they still see their time in Germany as an extraor-dinary period of their lives, and that the particular esteem in which we hold our fellows is quite unique. From the hospitality they encounter at our universi-ties and research institutions to the reception hosted by the Federal President, our Humboldtians experi-ence their time here as special. Last but not least, the stay is beneficial to their careers, at least that’s what 90 percent of Humboldtians tell us.pFeiFFer: Many have also had fellowships in other countries and are in a position to compare. We fre-quently hear things like: Where else do you get that: annual meetings where you have the opportunity to get together with your colleagues from neighbouring countries? Where else can you go on a study trip across Germany and have time to get to know the country and its people? Most research funding organisations don’t provide that sort of care. Not to mention our alumni programmes.AuFderheide: Exactly. “Once a Humboldtian, always a Humboldtian”, that still applies. Were you the one who came up with that? pFeiFFer: Possibly. If not, then I certainly wish I had (laughs).

Dr. Pfeiffer, when you took office, there were roughly 250 fellows. When did you stop knowing every one?pFeiFFer: 1975 was when it started getting difficult. I used to use our index cards to prepare for the annual meeting and the introductory meetings. The combina-tion of a photo and a name is very helpful. And if I also knew who the host was, or a few personal details, then it all fell into place again.

“ Many fellows came here with mixed feelings.”

dr. heinrich pFeiFFer was Secretary General from 1956 to 1994 and shaped the fortunes of the Foundation for more than 38 years. He is always welcome at the Foundation and often visits, even today. He is still also a tireless networker, maintaining contact with many Humboldtians.


Dr. Aufderheide, how do you prepare for an annual meeting of 600 today?AuFderheide: I certainly can’t learn the index cards of all those who attend off by heart. It’s more impor-tant to recapitulate on the personal relationships, to at least recognise the people one has spoken to before. I also have the feeling that Humboldtians understand that we are unable to know each and every one of them personally, but they are happy that we take an inter-est. And that interest is sincere and very great. I can honestly say that I have never met a Humboldtian who wasn’t interesting in some way or other.

The network now has 26,000 members. Can that still be described as the much-vaunted Humboldt family?AuFderheide: It’s astounding: whenever Humboldt-ians congregate, it’s as if they had known each other forever. I’ve just come back from a conference in Taiwan attended by people from Japan, Korea, India, China and Taiwan, about half of whom were Hum-boldtians. And although they had never met before, they quickly got together and started talking. While Japanese, Chinese and Taiwanese warships were stalk-ing each other over the island dispute north of Taiwan, science was building a bridge of friendship between the three nations under the Humboldt umbrella.pFeiFFer: That sort of thing, that spontaneous famil-iarity and openness, is something I have frequently observed as well. In this family, even if people don’t all know each other personally, there is still a sense of belonging. AuFderheide: That Humboldt feeling, so to speak. pFeiFFer: That’s exactly it! Congratulations, now you’re the one who has coined a good phrase.AuFderheide: But it could just as well have been you (laughs).pFeiFFer: True.

“Whenever Humboldtians congregate, it’s as if they had

known each other forever.”

dr. enno AuFderheide has been Secretary General of the Foundation since 2010. A biologist by training and passionate ornithologist, he is an experienced science manager whose career has taken him to institutions such as the Max Planck Society, the German Science Council and the German Aerospace Center.


Text: georg scholl | Illustration: rinAh lAng

Focus

For more about 60 years of the Foundation visit www.humboldt-foundation.de/chronology

one of germany’s largest foundation budgets

The Foundation’s budget continues to grow , due in no small part to the

Humboldt Professorship, but also as a result of other new programmes and

partners. It increases from approximately 64 million EUR in 2007 to over

100 million EUR today, making the Humboldt Foundation one of Germany’s top

foundations in terms of expenditure on funding. Today, the Humboldt Network

embraces more than 26,000 Humboldtians around the globe.

First cracks in the iron curtain

In 1959, the Foundation welcomes its first

two fellows from the Eastern Block – one

from Poland and one from Hungary. A diplo-

matic coup: freedom of travel is unheard of,

and a research stay with the enemy in the

West the absolute exception. Meanwhile,

intelligence services in Germany keep a

suspicious eye on certain fellows who might

after all turn out to be communists.

mission: to build trustIn the first year after establishing the Foundation in 1953, 78 fellows come to Germany. The Secretary General welcomes each and every one of them with a handshake. Germany’s image is still dominated by the Second World War and the Nazi period; the Foundation’s principal task is to build trust. Physicist Werner Heisenberg is the first President of the Foundation, one of several Nobel Laureates to hold this office.

the rolls royce of diplomacy

The Foundation’s means increase with its reputation. By

the mid-1960s, its budget has grown exponentially to

over eight million DM. A German diplomat describes the

Foundation as the Rolls Royce of foreign

cultural policy.

roofs over humboldtians’ heads

In 1963, the Foundation begins to construct guesthouses

and International Meeting Centres to accommodate

its fellows. By 1997, residences have been established in

50 university towns.


milestones From six decAdes oF FoundAtion Activity on FAst ForWArd

A Journey Through Time


development policy joins the agenda

In 1996, the Georg Forster Research Fellowship is established

specifically to meet the needs of developing countries. It is

designed to assist in the reciprocal transfer of methods and

knowledge.

the arrival of the million-euro awardsGermany auctions off GSM licences and makes billions of euros in revenue; some of that money goes to science. The Foundation benefits and is able to start offering the Paul and the Kovalevskaja Awards, which are worth millions. For the first time, Humboldt ians are brought to Germany for extended periods and with the aim of establishing long-term structures.

eu chooses humboldt From 2003, the Foundation is home to the EU’s National Contact Point and advises researchers on European research funding programmes.

regulars in the president’s gardenBeginning in 1955 and continuing to the present day, the Federal President hosts a reception every year for current Humboldtians in the grounds of the official presidential residence as part of the Foundation’s annual meeting. By 1981, the originally modest attendance figure has grown to over one thousand Humboldtians with kith and kin.

the culture of welcome is inventedIn 2003, the Foundation begins its campaign to establish a culture of welcome in Germany by grant-ing the Award for Germany’s Friendliest Immigra-tion Office. The Foundation wants researchers from abroad to feel comfortable and welcome. The response is overwhelming. Subsequent initiatives, such as the Welcome Centres competition, are emu-lated throughout Germany in the following years.

new award draws international stars to germany

From 2008, the Foundation’s Alexander von Humboldt Professorship

brings the international crème de la crème to German universities.

Financed by the Ministry of Research, the professorships – up to ten

per year – are valued at five million EUR each.

bmWs for the brightest minds from the usA Initially only intended for natural scientists from the USA, the Humboldt Research Award is intro-duced in 1972 and opened up to all countries and disciplines in the following years. For the first time, the Foundation is also able to reach experi-enced researchers. In its early days, the award is valued at 6,000 DM plus special conditions when buying a BMW – a perk enthusiastically exploited by around one in three award winners.



A neTwork for europeThe Humboldt Foundation as a blueprint for Europe? An idea worth debating, says President Helmut Schwarz. We spoke with him about the prospects for a European research policy to succeed against national egoism and bureaucratic omnipotence.Interview: georg scholl


Focus


kosmos: Professor Schwarz, a 60th anniversary is usually a reason to take a look back. Let’s take a look into the future instead. If you were free to dream, what would the Humboldt Foundation of tomorrow look like?helmut schWArz: A dream? Well, there is one I can think of, but it’s probably more of a daydream. Imag-ine if there were no German Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, but a European one instead – completely autonomous, not beset by those flash-in-the-pan rec-ommendations politicians often come up with, an organisation dedicated to creating space for research-ers or helping to overcome national egoism through cooperation etc. I’m sure that a Europe-wide institu-tion organised according to these principles could avoid a fair few research policy errors.

Such as? In many European countries, researchers have very limited autonomy because research topics are politi-cally determined and defined by research funding organisations through their allocation policies. Take a look at the academic research landscape in the UK, for example, not to mention the bureaucratic hurdles in France or the desolate situation – due to financial and structural issues – in Eastern Europe or in the Medi-terranean countries: not only is the younger genera-tion there being robbed of any prospects for the future; the governments of these countries are endangering their future as a whole, both by insufficiently funding education, science and research and because the fertil-ising domain of basic research has been cut back or is increasingly being disempowered.

So it all boils down to a lack of money?No, because the problems are not exclusively of a financial nature; they are also linked to attitudes. Take the Humboldt Foundation: in terms of its budget, it’s almost insignificant. But we are visible and are effec-tive because we are a sort of yeast in the academic dough: we set processes in motion that are designed to be sustainable and, by sponsoring individuals on the basis of excellence, have an invigorating effect on institutions – a colleague once used the term academic rejuvenation therapy. Many countries do not have any yeast to activate development. If the Humboldt Foun-dation were a blueprint, be it for a pan-European insti-tution or just on a national level in other countries, many mistakes could be avoided.

Isn’t the European Research Council already doing the same job as a European Humboldt Foundation? Only to a limited degree. Although I really admire the ERC for everything it has wrested from the >

Photo: Visum



Focus

Commission in Brussels in just a few years and all the good it has done for basic research in Europe, and despite the fact that the ERC’s programmes contain several Humboldt-like elements – such as excellence-based, individualised sponsorship –, there are a number of significant differences. An organisation with a pro-grammatic approach that demands, across the board, that topics must per se meet the requirements of pioneering research, that proposals worth funding must bear the label “frontier research”, is in danger of ultimately succumbing to fashionable trends and shying away from approving high-risk scenarios. Moreover, the ERC acts almost exclusively within Europe, while the Humboldt Foundation operates worldwide. And finally, I fail to see any evidence of the networking idea that is the very essence of the Humboldt Foundation in the notions emerging from Brussels.

In the Humboldt Network, the shared experience of Germany is very important to establishing a common identity. If Hum-boldtians spent their time in Rome, or in Brussels, or in Munich or London, this unifying element would be lost. Would a Euro-pean network still be feasible?

We don’t know, and it’s probably not even possible to predict with any certainty whether the ties Humboldt Fellows and Research Award Winners have with Germany today, and which make them into bridge-builders in a network of trust, will continue to be that unifying element in the future as well. We must acknowledge that researchers’ careers will become increasingly international and significantly less shaped by bipolar interactions. The Foundation is responding to this trend by enabling Humboldtians to spend up to three months at a European institution if their research plan justifies it. But whether this will lead to a kind of “European loy-alty” is questionable.

You don’t believe in the charisma of the European Research Area? No, indeed I don’t. Not only does the notion that geographically defined research areas should enhance attraction potential seem artificial to me, I actually think it’s completely irrelevant, because when young researchers are deciding where they want to work in the next few years, they are influenced by entirely different con-siderations. A legal scholar, for example, might choose Yale, whilst

“ The idea of a European research area is completely irrelevant.”


The Humboldt Foundation as a sort of European franchise model? Why not? I’m certain that a network of that sort would promote international exchange, which would also strengthen the Euro-pean research landscape.

That doesn’t sound sceptical at all …True, and my attitude is simply a response to the question you asked at the start, about what I dream of and what I don’t, what I consider realistic and desirable.

an economist might prefer Chicago; a chemist might want to go to Berkeley or a brain researcher to MIT – it’s the individual institu-tions, or to put it bluntly a particular working group or a person that will be the draw. It’s not the American research area that an individual chooses – and this is equally true of research areas else-where in the world.

Let’s dream on a bit. Who would fund a European Humboldt Foundation?There’s no question that the money would have to come from Brussels – but then we would inevitably have to do battle with all the exasperating problems of a juste retour system: quotas for countries or minorities, and extraneous, politi-cally motivated considerations would almost inevita-bly infiltrate the decision-making process. The great strength of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation – that it operates autonomously on the basis of a tried and tested founding mandate – would first have to be laboriously fought over. And I rather doubt that the Commission in Brussels would be willing to grant academia and its funding organisations extensive concessions again.

How come the ERC manages to transcend national egoism?I suspect that there are several reasons for this. First, the ERC’s budget in Brussels is so small as to be almost imperceptible. Secondly, the ERC occasionally serves as a wonderful excuse to demonstrate how adventur-ous the Commission was in setting it up. But let’s not forget that ways and means have meanwhile been found to domesticate the ERC. How this experiment, which was a long time coming, will end, and whether this “foreign body” within the EU administration will be able to maintain or even improve its structure in the long term and develop into the yeast dough that some of its founders saw in it remains to be seen.

You sound sceptical.Not really sceptical, more realistic – permanently overcoming national egoism, curtailing the ambit of agencies and administrative offices that have grown powerful, creating generous space for research – that’s going to be a Herculean challenge. Rather than a Euro-pean foundation, I would consider it more useful to establish a network of nationally operating, compet-ing, mutually inspiring Humboldt Foundations. All of the countries would benefit from that, and therefore so would Europe.

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boldt-Stiftung/Eric Lichtenscheidt

Chemist proFessor dr. helmut schWArz has been President of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation since 2008. He teaches and conducts research at TU Berlin, and is considered one of the world’s leading experts in the field of molecular chemistry. He has worked and taught in the UK, Israel, the USA, France, Japan, Australia, Austria and Switzer-land, amongst others.


once the moon, now marsIn 1953, the moon

landing was little more than a pipe dream, yet

there were scientists who were able to predict it with remarkable accu-

racy: American researchers examined the maximum speeds achieved by humans over the

centuries – on foot, in horse-drawn carriages, by train, in cars and aeroplanes; in 1953, they

calculated that four years later it would be possible to reach speeds sufficient to escape the Earth’s atmosphere. Thereafter, they claimed, a moon landing would be possible within just a

few years. They were right, down to the very year: in 1957, the Soviet Union sent its Sputnik satellite into orbit, and in 1959, the Lunik probe landed on the moon, ushering in the golden age of space explo-

ration. And today? Although space exploration programmes are suffering increasing cutbacks, the days of extraordinary achievements are not over yet. In 2012, NASA’s rover Curiosity (photo left) landed on Mars and has since been sending back a steady stream of data; preparations for the first crewed mission to Mars are currently underway.

heart surgery: yesterday’s breakthrough, today’s routine When John Gibbon picked up his scalpel in 1953, not many believed that his 18-year-old patient would survive the operation. For the first time in the history of medicine, Gibbon performed open heart surgery; during the 45-minute procedure, a heart-lung machine (photo left) kept his patient’s blood circulating. The success of this operation was a milestone in medical history and the starting point for numerous other advances in cardiology. The first pacemaker, for example, was implanted in 1958, this too an extremely risky operation. Today, these procedures are routine – in 2011, almost 15,000 pacemakers (photo below) were implanted in Germany alone. High-tech cardiology suites are no longer the preserve of university hospitals; many smaller units also have them. And open heart surgery, celebrated around the world 60 years ago as John Gibbon’s pioneering achievement, is now an everyday occurrence.

whAT we ThoughT we knew60 years of the Humboldt Foundation also mean 60 years of research history. How has our understanding of the world changed over this period, which predictions were correct and where did science fail to live up to its promise?Text: kiliAn kirchgessner

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new elements from particle acceleratorsThey have names like darmstadtium, ununseptium, curium, mendelevium or fermium – a total of 18 chemical elements have been discovered since 1955, constituting a significant proportion of the 118 elements known today. They were first arranged in the periodic table in 1869, but the search for elements goes as far back as the Middle Ages. A few, such as gold, helium or oxygen, exist in elemen-tary form in nature, but most have been produced from their compounds in laboratories by chemical reactions – such as arsenic or potassium. These techniques were no longer fit for purpose, however, when it came to the many discoveries of recent decades: the new elements, known as transuranium or transuranic elements, are created in nuclear reactors and particle accelerators (photo right);

most of them only exist for mere seconds or fractions of a second.

media theory 2.0 for a socially networked worldIn the mid-twentieth century, the world of the mass media was fairly straightforward. Those were the days – back in 1948 – when Harold Lasswell published his famous formula, considered the foundation of communication theory: “Who says what in which channel to whom and with what effect?” For decades, this formula served as a blueprint for examining the impact of the media. In those early days, it was assumed that mass media

affected users directly, as if they had been injected with a hypodermic needle. Today, Harold Lasswell’s theory is completely outdated. The mass media are no longer the sole gatekeepers (this, too, a term from the dawn

of communication science) who determine what a willing audience should be told. Twitter and Facebook, blogs and reader reporters are turning the media upside

down – and impact research is forced to re-examine questions it had believed long answered.

the next pathogen is out thereIn the 1950s, penicillin had an extraordinary side effect: looking back, researchers are certain that it served as a catalyst for the sexual revolution. Discovered in 1928, the anti-biotic largely managed to combat syphilis in the following decades, and the dwindling threat of sexually-transmitted infection led to a first sexual revolution. When the advent of the contraceptive pill in the 1960s saw the reduced risk of infection complemented by an end to the threat of unwanted pregnancy, this revolution gained even greater momentum. The spectre of syphilis, however, was replaced a few decades later – by AIDS. The immune deficiency syndrome is one of the greatest chal-lenges researchers face today: whilst medication already exists that can limit the disease’s effects, AIDS is still considered incurable. Research groups around the world are working to change that.

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i like you DespiTe The weATher A love letter to the Ruhr by American journalist Lori Herber


Once the hub of the coal and steel industry, the Ruhr has now become a cultural region. Duisburg’s 20-metre high, accessible sculpture “Tiger & Turtle” in the form of a roller coaster was one of the landmark projects of the European Capital of Culture – RUHR.2010.

Text: lori herber

vieW onto germAny


Dear Ruhr, How long has it been since we first met? I can’t remember the exact date anymore, but I’ll never forget the cir-cumstances. I had studied in Trier as an exchange student and thought all of Ger-

many looked like that – softly rolling vineyards and little half-timbered houses with a river snaking along beside them. When I flew to Germany again a year later to study in Münster, you completely destroyed this idyllic notion. The railway line from Düsseldorf Air-port to Münster slunk through the Ruhr, and although I was tired from my flight, I wasn’t tired enough not to notice that my beloved hills and half-timbered

houses had disappeared. Instead, abandoned, graffiti-splattered buildings sped past my window. “That can’t possibly be Germany …,” I thought in dismay. To be honest, it wasn’t love at first sight. More like third or fourth sight. After my stay in Münster, I nonetheless wanted to get to know you better. According to family lore, my great-grandmother was originally from Essen; maybe that was what aroused my personal interest. I was curious why everyone laughed so pityingly at the mention of your name. Were you really as dirty as the others said? Could I really not hang my washing out to dry because it would turn black? I found out more


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„ With more than over 200 nationalities under one lid, you are Germany’s melting pot.“

Lori Herber in one of Germany’s largest mosques, the DITIB Merkez Mosque in Duisburg-Marxloh. One of the students involved in her project showed her how to pray – a very memorable experience for Lori Herber. She is convinced that “the very diversity of the people and traditions in the Ruhr just make it special”.


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Between kebab and Diploma

for her project “Between Kebab and Diploma: Educa-tion Prospects for School Students of Turkish Ancestry

in the Ruhr”, Lori Herber explored the perceptions of young people and spoke with them about their lives and their goals. How did their families come to Germany? What are their educational goals, and who supports them in their plans? What sort of life do they dream of? How do they perceive themselves and their surroundings? What advice would they give others, and what challenges do they face as people who are “not typically German”? Herber’s focus was on young people with Turkish roots, who are part of Germany’s largest minority; she spoke with seven school students living in various cities in the Ruhr who attend different types of school and come from different family backgrounds. The interviews and portraits can be found on the website of the Ruhr

Regional Association: www.zdd.metropoleruhr.de

about you and your past when I worked on my “Ris-ing from the Rust” project which was supported by the Robert Bosch Stiftung. Your residents described and celebrated you in countless interviews. Once I got over the initial shock, I was fascinated by you, dear Ruhr, and by your people. Your history is pretty complicated. Many of your cities were almost entirely destroyed during the war. Then came the economic miracle, and you called in support from many countries – from Poland, Greece, Spain and Turkey. That’s precisely why I love you, for your diversity. With over 200 nationalities under one

lid, you are Germa-ny’s “melting pot”. It’s interesting how your inhabitants with what is called a migration background are often portrayed. First they were Gastarbeiter, guest workers. Then they were foreigners. Then migrants. Now

they are people with a migration background. Politi-cians and the media don’t always present them in a positive light. I wanted to learn more. I didn’t want to talk about these people as terms of statistics, I wanted to talk to them – and at the same time allow them to tell others their stories. Thanks to the Humboldt Foun-dation, and in collaboration with the Ruhr Regional Association in Essen, that ambition developed into a project entitled “Zwischen Döner und Diplom” (“Between Kebab and Diploma”). I was allowed to dis-cover a side of your history – and your future – that was new to me. I listened to the dreams, challenges and triumphs of your young generation of inhabitants of Turkish descent, and communicated them to a wide audience (see project inset).

germany‘s insider tipEven as the project comes to an end, I know that our shared story will continue somehow. Like in any rela-tionship, we’ve had our ups and downs. Yes, I still remember the time I left you for a few days because I couldn’t stand your endless dull and rainy weather anymore. I needed proof that the sky was still blue. Those days were quickly over, and as soon as I crossed the border from the Rhineland back into the Ruhr, you embraced me with a cascade of raindrops. That was somehow our running joke, and if I’m honest, I was pleased – I know you mean no harm. I’ll try to find the bakery my great-grandmother’s parents once owned. And I’ll defend you when others laugh at you, dear Ruhr. Because although you have no Neuschwan-stein Castle and no landscapes to match the Black Forest, you do have your own special charm. You’re Germany’s best insider tip. Yes, you have your bruises

With cities like Bochum, Essen and Dortmund and some 5.1 million inhabi-tants, the densely-popu-lated Ruhr is the largest conurbation in Germany.

and your scars, marks left by mining and heavy indus-try. But where else can boast a colliery on the World Heritage List, or offer stunning views from its dump-ing grounds, or congratulate itself as an entire region on being crowned “European Capital of Culture 2010”? Modest as you are, though, you would never brag.

lori herber studied German and Journalism with a focus on design at Ball State University in Muncie, Indiana, USA. From September 2011 to November 2012, she was one of the Humboldt Foundation’s German Chancellor Fellows and worked at the Ruhr Regional Association in Essen. She is currently freelancing in the Ruhr. Visit www.loriherber.com for more information about her work.


Text: hubertus breuer | Fotos: xxxxxxxxxxxxxxxx

He has received a Pulitzer Prize for his work, moves back and forth between universities in Germany and the USA, and is one of the world’s leading experts in myrmecology. For over fifty years, Bert Hölldobler has been researching the world of ants.

The AnT mAn

close up on reseArch

Text: hubertus breuer


Photo: Bert Hölldobler


close up on reseArch

In most ant species, the males are nothing but “sperm rockets”.

The year was 1944. Bert Hölldobler was all of seven or eight years old. His father, a sur-geon who had studied zoology, was home on leave from the Eastern Front. They were rambling through the Franconian For-

est near Ochsenfurt together, his father turning over stones to look for ant crickets. Under one of those stones, the boy suddenly caught sight of a colony of carpenter ants scurrying about, rushing their larvae and pupae to safety, vanishing into the tunnels that protected them from the light of day and the prying eyes of father and son. Hölldobler, 77, recounts this formative experience in his office at Arizona State University. Sitting at his desk, a wiry man in short sleeves with a beard and lively blue eyes, he has the air of an outdoorsman just returned from an excursion into the Bavarian Forest or the desert. Today, the scientist, whose involvement with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation goes back to 1973, is one of the world’s leading experts on research into ant societies. He illuminated their complex social life, publishing the Pulitzer Prize-winning, definitive work “The Ants” together with Edward O. Wilson, the pop star of American evolutionary biology, while he was at Harvard University in 1990. In recent years, Hölldobler has joined forces with bee geneticist Robert Page to set up an international group of researchers at Arizona State University’s School of Life Sciences to examine the complex social behaviour of bees, ants and termites. Academically, ants first crossed Hölldobler’s path in his student days, when he discovered that car-penter ants in Europe’s far north operate an unusual system of reproductive ant stockpiling: the male and the female alates are produced one year before their mating flight. And because it would be rather uneco-nomical if the males did nothing but consume food for months, they exhibit an extraordinarily high level of social behaviour and help in caring for the brood, for example. This is quite different from the vast majority of ant species, in which the males swarm out as “sperm rockets”, as Hölldobler terms it, in the year they are born, mate, if they are lucky, with a future queen, and then die.

beetles that behave like antsHölldobler made sensational discoveries from the early days of his career. It had long been known that other insects, such as rove beetles, live in ant colonies


A carpenter ant worker (Camponotus ligniperdus) helps a young worker to hatch from the cocoon. It was an encounter with this species of carpenter ant on a ramble with his father at the age of seven or eight that became a formative experience in the life of Bert Hölldobler.

Bert Hölldobler



The rove beetle Lomechusa strumosa is completely integrated in the ant society, in this case Formica sanguinea. In this picture a Lomechusa beetle is being fed by a worker ant at one end while pacifying another worker with the secretion from a gland at the tip of its rear end.

Bert Hölldobler in the field in Arizona, filming a territorial battle between honeypot ants.

as social parasites: the ants raise the beetles’ larvae, and feed and protect the adult beetles. Hölldobler wanted to find out how that was possible, as ants are renowned for hunting and devouring intruders. He was able to prove that over the course of evolution, the parasitic beetles had deciphered the ants’ communi-cation code and could mimic it so effectively that the ants fed and cared better for them than for their own larvae and nestmates. The results of this work made it into prestigious academic journals like “Science” – the first highlight of Hölldobler’s young career. Many other papers on chemical communication in ants followed. These achievements bore fruit – in the autumn of 1969, Hölldobler accepted an invitation to spend a year conducting research at Harvard University. His work there was so successful that one year became two. The US university was a revelation. After Frank-furt’s endless meetings blighted by irrelevant points of order that brought university business almost to a standstill, he found himself in Cambridge, USA, where he was not only able to conduct his research without the bureaucracy, but also encountered a highly >


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stimulating environment. He formed close academic ties with Edward O. Wilson, and with insect physi-ologist Carroll M. Williams and his group. He also attended lectures by the then grand old man of evo-lutionary biology, Ernst Mayr, who became a pater-nal friend over the years. During his research stay at Harvard, Hölldobler was notified that he had been appointed professor of zoology in Frankfurt, which came as something of a surprise as he had not actually applied for the post. And so he returned to Frankfurt – a decision he was soon to regret.

Fleeing the Frankfurt 68ersOnce there, he came face to face with the aftermath of the 1968 student revolution. Liberal though Höll-dobler may be, he found himself forced to witness his teacher Lindauer being bombarded with paper planes and pellets during lectures. He soon thought of leaving Frankfurt again. When first Cornell University, and shortly afterwards Harvard, offered him full profes-sorships in 1972, he said yes to Harvard. Hölldobler’s association with the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation also goes back to his time at Harvard when he became an expert reviewer for the Foundation’s new Humboldt Research Award Pro-gramme. Later, in 1987, he received the Humboldt

Territorial battles between African weaver ants. Both the enemies and the fellow ants that have been killed in battle are carried back to the nest and used as food.

View of a chamber in an ants’ nest with rows of Myrmeco-cystus mimicus honeypots hanging from the roof.




Research Award himself. When he finally moved to Würzburg in the autumn of 1989, to head the newly conceived Department of Behavioural Physiology and Sociobiology, he became a member of the selection committee for the award, a function he performed for ten years. “That was a nice job, because many excellent academics from abroad were invited to Germany for a research stay through this programme.” His move to Würzburg was not only prompted by homesickness. Despite a steady flow of grants from the National Science Foundation Hölldobler had been unable to set up a large-scale interdisciplinary work-ing group with geneticists and neurobiologists in the USA. The newly founded Biocenter in Würzburg on the other hand brought together biological disciplines from three faculties. That appealed to Hölldobler. And that on top of all he won the Leibniz Prize in 1990, “that was a real bonanza”, he notes. He was able to invite many researchers to Würzburg from Germany and abroad, an endeavour for which the Humboldt Foundation also provided considerable assistance.

ritual displays instead of bloodshedEven today, in Arizona, Hölldobler’s work is far from over – he is extending his research into the evolution of social insects, working with colleagues from a wide range of disciplines. Among other things, the myr-mecologist is examining the aggressive behaviour of ants like the honeypot ant. Workers from neighbour-ing colonies confront each other in ritual displays in which they posture with raised heads and rears. Simi-lar behaviour can be observed in other species. Groups of woodhoopoes, an African bird species, for exam-ple, conduct calling contests with other flocks – the winner is whoever calls the longest and loudest. And native people in New Guinea are also known for such ritual combat during which not a single drop of blood is shed; its purpose is to demonstrate a tribe’s battle strength to its opponents. So his work continues, but Hölldobler is also satis-fied when he looks back. He is considered one of the world’s pre-eminent researchers in his field. Many of his former collaborators have themselves made impor-tant contributions to science and are now professors with international reputations. And, last but not least, he has managed over the years to achieve one of his prime objectives and communicate his research to a wide audience, as evidenced by another of his books, “Journey to the Ants”, which has just appeared in Ger-many entitled “Auf den Spuren der Ameisen”.

After the endless meetings blighted by irrelevant points of order in Frankfurt Harvard was a revelation.

Students in the Frankfurt Sociology Department at the end of 1968 during a “never-ending debate” that had begun on the previous day. University business obstructs itself. Frustated, Hölldobler leaves Frankfurt and heads to Boston.

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Federal chancellor Fellowship programme expanded to india and brazil

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is extending the scope of its Federal Chancellor

Fellowships to include future leaders from Brazil and India. Together with young talents from the USA, Russia and China, who were already eligible to apply, they are now also invited to come to Germany to carry out projects and make contacts. By opening up the Fellowship to Brazil and India, two economically and politically important growth countries have joined the programme. After their stay in Germany it is hoped that the Federal Chancellor Fellows, who come from a wide range of disciplines, will become intermediar-ies and develop long-term relationships between Ger-many and their own countries as part of the worldwide Humboldt Network. Each year, the fellowship programme, which is under the patronage of the Federal Chancellor and funded by the Federal Foreign Office, enables up to ten graduates who already have initial leadership

experience to enhance their specialist knowledge in Germany, gain new international experience and strengthen their intercultural competencies. The fellows carry out their projects as guests of a partner they have chosen themselves in the fields of politics, economics, the media, administration, society or culture. Their project work is preceded by a two- to three-month introductory phase in which they visit important German public institutions and busi-nesses, make international contacts within the group and intensively learn German together. In addition to the boost to their careers that a stay in Germany can offer, the fellowship is designed to support the fellows in developing into successful leadership personalities.

www.humboldt-foundation.de/web/ german-chancellor-fellowship.html

Prospective leaders to implement projects with partners in Germany

The 2012 Federal Chancellor Fellows being received by Federal Chancellor Angela Merkel Photo: Presse- und Informationsamt der Bundesregierung/Steffen Kugler

neWs



humboldt research Award Winner ernest moniz is the new us secretary of energy

Fund-raising campaign for 60th anniversary

uS President Barack Obama has appointed physi-cist Ernest Moniz to his cabinet as Secretary of

Energy. Moniz is considered an expert on energy research and energy policy issues. He was granted the Humboldt Research Award in 1989 and, over the following five years, spent regular periods of several months conducting research with theoretical nuclear physicist Frieder Lenz at Friedrich-Alexander-Univer-sität Erlangen-Nürnberg, supported by the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation. Moniz in his turn also hosted two German junior researchers who conducted research at his institute as Feodor Lynen Research Fellows. He succeeds Energy Secretary Steven Chu who is also a Humboldt Research Award Winner. Before joining the US administration in May 2013, Ernest Moniz was Cecil H. and Ida Green Professor of Physics at the Massachusetts Institute of Technol-ogy (MIT) in Cambridge, USA, where he also headed the MIT Energy Initiative and the MIT Laboratory for Energy and the Environment, which conducts research into climate-friendly energy sources. He most recently worked for the American government as a member of Barack Obama’s Council of Advisors on Science and Technology, was Under Secretary in the

Department of Energy from 1997 to 2001, and previously an Associate Director for Science in the Executive Office of the President under Bill Clinton. “We would like to extend our congratula-tions to Ernest Moniz, and are delighted that, after Steven Chu, a sec-ond Humboldtian has taken on this impor-tant position. Moniz is not only an outstanding researcher, but also has excel-lent connections with Germany. He stands for the continuation of a research-driven energy policy that seeks alternatives to declining fossil fuels. I am espe-cially pleased that this again shows what an important role Humboldt ians play for our future, over and above their contributions to research,” said the Secretary General of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, Enno Aufderheide.

The Humboldt Foundation has launched a fundraising campaign as

it enters its anniversary year. Donations will be used to finance new measures to introduce young researchers to the Foundation’s network, for example by providing funding for them to attend Foundation events or by enabling Foun-dation alumni to invite junior research-ers to accompany them on research trips to Germany. Many Humboldtians have already contributed, among them Indian physicist K. Anantha Padmanabhan of the University of Hyderabad, who donated 10,000 EUR, the largest gift so far.

Donations are still most welcome. Visit www.humboldt-foundation.de/donations for the Foundation’s bank details and other information, such as how you would like your donation to be used. Humboldtians from all countries are invited to donate, with the exception of the USA where a separate fund-raising campaign will be held towards the end

of the year: alumni in the United States will receive a request for donations from the American Friends of the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation, the Foun-dation’s partner in the USA, in due course.

Expecting new ideas for developing climate-friendly energies

Campaign to promote junior researchers runs to the end of the year

Ernest Moniz (left) being sworn in (on the right his wife Naomi and the Deputy Energy Secretary Daniel Poneman)

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the FAces oF the FoundAtion

if hearing that I work in the Selection Department makes you think of piles of folders, you wouldn’t be entirely wrong. It’s true

that several thousand applications cross our desks every year, each one of them bursting at the seams with expert reviews, research plans and publication lists. Over all that paperwork I believe it’s very important not to forget that there’s a person behind every application. Recently, the mother of a rejected applicant called me: she was in tears, and the first thing I had to do was comfort her. The people I deal with the most, though, are the hosts of our future Humboldtians. They frequently call me asking for advice on their candidate’s application. With our expert reviewers it’s usually me who does the calling, to politely but persistently ask when we can expect the promised review because without a sufficient number of reviews, we can’t continue processing the application. Really nice reviewers sometimes even send me their reviews when they are on holiday. Over the years, it has become increasingly difficult

to find reviewers. People simply have more and more to do. If the research area is small and the topic is specialised, many also have a conflict of interest, for example because they know the nominee personally. That happens a lot in our award programmes. Because I like to actually meet the Humboldtians whom I only know from their files, I take every opportunity to attend our events. It’s always great when I run into one of “my” Hum-boldtians there. These international encounters were the reason I started working for the Humboldt Foundation in the first place. I’ve travelled a lot for the Foundation, and I also love visiting far-flung places in my spare time. Most recently I’ve been to Mexico and Senegal. I want to see how people live and what their everyday lives are like. And who knows, maybe someday I’ll even run into a Humboldtian on one of my private trips.

Michaela Kreilos talked to georg scholl

Photo: Michael Jordan

comforT AnD ADVice for ApplicAnTs

Who actually does what at the Humboldt headquarters? Who are the people behing the scenes making sure that everything runs smoothly? This page is devoted to the colleagues at the Humboldt Foundation and their lives at work and beyond.

Today: Michaela Kreilos.

This is where The english

Version finishes.

BITTE WENDEN SIE DAS HEFT, UM DIE DEUTSCHE FASSUNG ZU LESEN.

Photo: iStockphoto

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