Brain Gain: Recruiting and keeping excellent young scientists
Helmholtz Association establishes 18 new young investigators groups with longer-term career prospects (tenure track option). Eleven group leaders come from renowned foreign institutions.
The Helmholtz Association of National Research Centres continues to expand its funding and support programme for outstanding young scientists. 18 new Young Investigators Groups will be established with funds from the Helmholtz President's Initiative and Networking Fund over a period of five years. The Association has succeeded in encouraging nine excellent German researchers working at renowned foreign institutions to return to Germany as well as in recruiting one British and one Brazilian scientist for the programme. 13 of the groups involve cooperation with universities and will be run as Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Groups. The President plans to raise the number of Young Investigators Groups from 38 at present to a total of around 100 over the coming years.
"Early scientific independence, good working conditions and reliable career prospects are essential for recruiting and keeping young top-rate scientists. What distinguishes our programme over and above these important factors is a tenure option, that is, for the best, the prospect of a permanent position after the five year period," explained Professor Dr. Walter Kröll, President of the Helmholtz Association. All the successful group leaders asserted themselves in a competition between 58 applicants involving a selection process made up of an external peer review and a presentation before an interdisciplinary jury. Each group will be subjected to an intermediary evaluation after a period of three to four years. If this is positive, the group leader will be offered a tenured contract. Kröll: "That we have been able to recruit scientists from such distinguished institutions as the Universities of Berkeley, Harvard, Yale and Oxford shows how attractive our young investigators programme and research at the Helmholtz Centres is. I am particularly pleased that three of the four se-lected women researchers are also mothers. This proves that it is possible to combine career and family in the Helmholtz Association."
And so the Helmholtz Association has already started the next call for applications for a further 20 groups. Two types of groups are supported with a minimum of 250,000 euros per annum over five years. In the case of Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Groups close contacts already exist with the partner university. The President's Fund covers half the costs. "We want to establish a culture of cooperation between the Helmholtz Centres and the universities, and have already agreed this with the German Rectors' Conference (HRK). The young scientists take on academic rights and duties and so can qualify themselves for a university career," said Kröll. The second type, Helmholtz Young Investigators Groups, is for candidates from abroad. These groups still need to establish contacts with a partner university.
Funded Young Investigators Groups
The funded groups come from all six Helmholtz Research Fields: Energy (1), Earth and Environment (2), Health (6), Key Technologies (2), Structure of Matter (6), Transport and Space (1):
- Global change and the future marine carbon cycle
Research Field: Earth and Environment
Helmholtz Centre: Alfred-Wegener-Institut für Polar- und Meeresforschung (AWI)
Dr. Anja Engel, Stony Brook University, USA - Computer algebra and higher orders in particle theory
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
University: Universität Würzburg
Dr. Sven-Olaf Moch, DESY, Zeuthen - Many particle momentum spectroscopy with synchrotron and FEL radiation
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Deutsches Elektronen-Synchrotron (DESY)
University: Universität Frankfurt am Main
Dr. Thorsten Weber, University of California, Berkeley, USA - Molecular biology of centrosomes and their role in cell cycle progression and carcino-genesis
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ)
Dr. Gislene Pereira, School of Biological Sciences, UK - The role of microRNAs in cell differentiation and cancer
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: Deutsches Krebsforschungszentrum (DKFZ)
Dr. Helge Großhans, Yale University, USA - New optical measurement techniques for turbomachinery diagnostics
Research Field: Transport and Space
Helmholtz Centre: Deutsches Zentrum für Luft- und Raumfahrt (DLR)
University: TU Berlin
Dr.-Ing. Ingo Röhle, DLR, Berlin - Advanced performance analysis tools for parallel and distributed high-performance computing applications
Research Field: Key Technologies
Helmholtz Centre: Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
University: Technische Hochschule Aachen
Dr. Felix Wolf, University of Tennessee, USA - Electronic and optical properties of molecular nanostructures
Research Field: Key Technologies
Helmholtz Centre: Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK)
University: Universität Karlsruhe
Dr. Ralph Krupke, FZK - Investigation of inclined extensive air showers of highest energies with the Pierre Auger Observatory
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Forschungszentrum Karlsruhe (FZK)
University: Universität Karlsruhe
Dr. Markus Roth, FZK - Bacterial communication, biofilms, and chronic infection - comparative molecular analysis of cell-density dependent global gene regulation in the opportunistic human pathogen Pseudomonas aeruginosa
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung (GBF)
Dr. Martin Schuster, University of Iowa, USA - Pathogenesis of chronic Pseudomonas aeruginosa infections
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: Gesellschaft für Biotechnologische Forschung (GBF)
University: Medizinische Hochschule Hannover
Dr. Susanne Häußler, GBF - Motor protein-dependent translocation complexes in gene regulation and disease
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: GSF-Forschungszentrum für Umwelt und Gesundheit
University: Universität München
Dr. Dierk Niessing, Structural GenomiX, Inc., USA - Novel approaches with compound specific isotope analysis (CSIA) to characterize degradation of pesticides and other groundwater contaminants
Research Field: Earth and Environment
Helmholtz Centre: GSF-Forschungszentrum für Umwelt und Gesundheit
Dr. Martin Elsner, University of Toronto, Kanada - Investigations of collective effects in ultra-relativistic nuclear collisions
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI)
University: Universität Heidelberg
Dr. Kai Schweda, Lawrence Berkeley National Laboratories, Berkeley, USA - Laserspektroskopie an exotischen Atomen und hochgeladenen Ionen
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Gesellschaft für Schwerionenforschung (GSI)
University: Universität Mainz
Dr. Wilfried Nörtershäuser, GSI - Neutron scattering investigation of quantum magnets and exotic superconductors
Research Field: Structure of Matter
Helmholtz Centre: Hahn-Meitner-Institut (HMI)
University: TU Berlin
Dr. Alysia Lake, University of Oxford, UK - Theory and ab initio simulation of plasma turbulence
Research Field: Energy
Helmholtz Centre: Max-Planck-Institut für Plasmaphysik (IPP)
University: Universität Münster
Dr. Frank Jenko, IPP - Cancer stem cells and transcription factors
Research Field: Health
Helmholtz Centre: Max-Delbrück-Centrum für Molekulare Medizin (MDC)
University: Humboldt-Universität Berlin
Dr. Frank Rosenbauer, Harvard Institutes of Medicine, Boston, USA
With its 15 Research Centres and a budget of around 2.2 billion euros, the Helmholtz Association is the largest scientific research organisation in Germany. The 24,000 staff of the Helmholtz Association produces excellent scientific findings in six Research Fields: Energy, Earth and Environment, Health, Key Technologies, Structure of Matter, Transport and Space. The Helmholtz Association identifies and addresses the grand challenges facing society, science and industry, in particular by researching systems of great complexity.
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