12. September 2007 Helmholtz Head Office

Speech at the Annual General Assembly 2007: Bright minds for a bright future

Speech by President Prof. Dr. Jürgen Mlynek at the Helmholtz Annual General Assembly on 12 September 2007 in Berlin.

Honourable Federal Chancellor, Ms. Merkel,

Ladies and gentlemen,

 "Human reason is broad, whereas the world is narrow, so that thoughts can live at ease together in the former while there are harsh clashes between things in the latter", to quote Schiller's Wallenstein. I recently saw this play here in Berlin, directed by Peter Stein. Ten hours of theatre, what an experience!

We scientists can benefit particularly from the different way which art has of looking at the world. Sometimes we have to step back from the realm of "things that clash against each other harshly" and allow room for thoughts that may drift to us with ease but are often all the more difficult to pin down: about values, for example, that regulate the way we live together and how we treat each other. And not just in the Year of the Humanities but time and time again. In doing so, we should not forget that it is not just art and culture that characterize our country. Our cultural heritage includes not only Schiller and Beethoven, but also the inventions of Werner von Siemens and the discoveries of Albert Einstein. Our prosperity in particular depends to a great degree on scientific progress and creative technology. Both of which are driven and developed by people.

These people are our strength - they are highly educated and motivated, independent and productive. This scientific workforce, together with an outstanding infrastructure, particularly in research, are locational advantages for Germany, which we must not endanger. And this is why we have chosen "Bright minds for a bright future" as this year's motto. More than ever before, we need creative people in order to master the challenges of the future. I will provide three keywords as an example: climate change, energy supply and healthcare.

But as Schiller so aptly has Wallenstein say: "Words have always been bolder than deeds." Good ideas can quickly be put into words but are often difficult to implement! And this also applies to pledges and analyses on education and life-long learning. But we are making progress: In Meseberg the federal government has now adopted a training campaign. This is a very positive step and I very much hope that it will soon have a tangible impact. For other nations are not dozing either: at the beginning of August, the American Congress passed a law on the promotion of excellence in technology, education and science. Under the punchy acronym COMPETES (Creating Opportunities to Meaningfully Promote Excellence in Technology, Education and Science), this law is geared towards improving education in the natural sciences from primary school right through to university, to modernising teacher training and to fuelling new Research Programmes. More than 43 billion dollars have been earmarked for this initiative over the next three years! That is America's way of securing themselves their leading role in science and research. And we all know, ladies and gentlemen, that this is the only way Germany too can maintain its prosperity and create new jobs.

This is why the Helmholtz Association is also reinforcing its efforts in this field: we want to invest even more than before in minds and have developed new measures to this end. We need more highly qualified staff because only then can we fulfil our mission and contribute to solving the grand challenges facing society, industry and science today. For example in the emerging fields that the federal government specified in its High-Tech Strategy, the environment and climate are top of the agenda, and this complements our research areas extremely well. A central challenge of the future is: How can we use the Earth's resources without drastically changing the climate? And the key question behind this is: how can we secure our energy supply?

For this reason I have called for the establishment of a national energy research initiative in the past few months. I am very pleased that this topic will be addressed on 16 October at the Climate Summit II as part of the climate research strategy.

We also require experts for the second part of our mission. We research highly complex systems and we do this on a grand scale. The Helmholtz Association is currently planning large-scale facilities which are unique worldwide such as the X-ray laser XFEL and the particle accelerator FAIR. These are beacon projects which make Germany one of the most attractive research locations in the world. In June we celebrated the kick-off of the construction of the XFEL facility in Hamburg, and in November we will be giving the go ahead for the construction of FAIR in Darmstadt. We thank the federal government, and specifically Federal Minister Ms Schavan and our Federal Chancellor Ms Merkel, as well as our international partners for jointly putting so much energy into these projects and succeeding in guaranteeing their financing.

But what actually forms the basis of our successful work? It is the people who work at the Helmholtz Association. And I expressly mean all 26,000 staff members from our trainees to our directors. I would like to take this opportunity to thank them all for their dedication. And with this I also mean their willingness to apply their individual strengths to a large project, thereby working together to produce an outcome than is greater than the sum of the individual contributions.

In order to achieve this, we have to give our staff the best possible support. And this includes not only a good working environment but also manifold opportunities for further development. People have different talents which they can apply to a common cause. But in order to do so, these talents need to be discovered and fostered. And then these people need to be set tasks with which they can realize their potential in the most effective way. The catchphrase for this nowadays is "talent management".

This approach of working with the talents of our staff, of strengthening these talents individually, developing them further and then letting them be applied is the core of the Helmholtz organisational culture. And I'm not just talking about the five percent of absolute top scientists.  We have established concrete and partly unique measures which benefit all our staff. Because, after all, they determine our performance and efficiency - and that is what matters.

Our approach is based on five key pillars:

Firstly, of course, we promote young scientists:

Doctoral students: Together with universities, we educate around 3800 doctoral students every year and are pleased that an increasing number of foreign students are coming to Germany to do their thesis. A doctorate at the Helmholtz Association is more than a lab space with cutting edge equipment: together with our partner universities we offer structured doctoral course programmes in Graduate Schools and ensure that a doctorate can be completed within three years.

Young Investigators Groups: Top postgraduates from Germany and abroad apply to be the leaders of the Helmholtz-University Young Investigators Groups. These positions are very attractive as they give young scientists the opportunity to research independently and build up their own working groups early on in their career. These Helmholtz positions are temporary at first, but where outstanding work is produced, can lead to a permanent position, which is also called tenure track. And that is of extreme importance because young people in their thirties need solid career perspectives especially if they are to devote all their strength to science.

Secondly we promote vocational training. We tend to overlook this, but it is not just academics that create our prosperity. To build and operate scientific infrastructures and large facilities we need an excellent workforce in the technical field. In our centres we train more than 1600 trainees and apprentices in technical occupations, a great deal more than any other research organisation in Germany. And our trainees are outstanding, a fact proven by the awards which they repeatedly win in the competitions of the Chambers of Trades and Crafts.

Thirdly: Equal opportunities. Women still have higher obstacles to overcome than their male competitors in order to pursue a career in research. And we will not make any progress in this respect with words alone, ladies and gentlemen. And that is why - despite all the controversies - I am increasingly in favour of a quota. At the same time we have to ensure the compatibility of family and work and we have already taken some steps towards this in the Helmholtz Association: flexible working hours and kindergartens in all centres as well as back-to-work positions following parental leave.

Fourthly, we already take action "before the lecture theatre": despite the slight current turnaround, there are still not enough young people in Germany who want to become engineers, physicists or material researchers. For this reason we want to arouse interest in occupations in the natural sciences and technology: every year, over 40,000 schoolchildren visit our 22 School Labs and become acquainted with the occupational field of "research".  But we go even further: 1000 kindergartens with 60,000 children have already joined the "Early Discovery Center" initiative and this number is growing every week. By means of games, children learn to observe in detail and carry out first experiments themselves. We hope that they will be able to retain their enthusiasm right through their school years.

And fifthly we promote further training at work, and we do so on a large scale.  All staff can participate in further training measures ranging from language courses through presentation techniques to media training, to give just a few examples.

Alongside these traditional further training courses we have also developed a special offer for Helmholtz staff who are preparing to take on leadership positions or already have a high level of responsibility. Because leadership positions entail particularly great challenges at the Helmholtz Association, especially in the management of large research projects.

This autumn will see the launch of the Helmholtz Management Academy, which you will hear more about in a moment. As a research organisation with a national mandate we don't just provide training for our own needs but also for companies, which, as we all know, are extremely dependent on skilled workers - from trainees to scientific specialists.

And, as you may have noticed, I have not yet mentioned money, but one thing is for certain: A qualification offensive cannot work without funding. And another thing: we also need greater freedom of action. This is why I strongly welcome Federal Minister Schavan's intention to put forward a law on scientific freedom.

Let me summarize: Germany's strengths, also in international comparison, are well educated people. And we must build on this strength by creating more training opportunities on all levels. This is why we are making talent management the core of the Helmholtz culture. The Helmholtz Association is to become one of the most attractive employers in research and development. Join us, if you want to be challenged and supported - and if you want to help us in our large mandate of securing the future. As Schiller's Wallenstein puts it so well, "Man grows with his grand purposes!"

Thank you very much!