President

The President represents the Association internally, externally and internationally. The President is elected by the Senate every five years following a proposal submitted by the Assembly of Members (the 18 research centers). The President can serve a maximum of two terms.

The President's responsibilities

The Statutes of the Helmholtz Association define the President's responsibilities as to:

• Prepare and implement the Senate recommendations on programme funding, including the organization of programme evaluations;
• coordinate the development of programs across research fields and to develop the general strategy;
• represent the Helmholtz-Gemeinschaft e.V. externally;
• coordinate the financial controlling system across all the centers;
• present draft resolutions on the programs and their budgets in the Senate;
• Negotiate, on the basis of Senate recommendations, with the centers and financing partners on the total funding requirement for the Helmholtz Association and on the distribution of the association budget across the research fields.

The President has a so-called Initiative and Networking Fund worth 60m euros per year at his disposal. This instrument enables him to carry forward the association's development and to accelerate the reform processes. The President can use the fund to specifically drive forward the programme-oriented funding and to extend examples of best practice developed in individual Helmholtz Centers across the whole association. The president is elected on the basis of the proposal of the General Assembly every five years by the Senate, for a maximum of two terms. He is assisted by eight vice presidents and managing directors.

The Incumbent: Martin Keller

“At Helmholtz, we are ideally positioned to improve life on our planet through our research over the decades to come. We address major future challenges in six core research areas, and with a cross-cutting mindset that is the envy of many and unique worldwide. I very much look forward to working with our partners in politics, science, and industry to tackle the pressing questions of our time in a solution-oriented manner. Helmholtz is where the action is.”

Martin Keller has served as Director of the National Renewable Energy Laboratory (NREL) in Golden, Colorado, USA, and as President of the Alliance for Sustainable Energy – the company that operates NREL for the US Department of Energy – from 2015 to 2025. NREL is broadly considered to be the leading research institute for renewable energy and energy efficiency in the United States. From 2006 to 2015, he held leading positions at Oak Ridge National Laboratory, most recently as Associate Laboratory Director for Energy and Environmental Sciences. Keller studied at the University of Regensburg, Germany, where he completed a PhD in microbiology. In 1996, he moved to the US to join the rising biotech company Diversa. Martin Keller is a Fellow of the American Association for the Advancement of Science (AAAS) and serves on the Supervisory Board and Scientific Advisory Council of the Forschungszentrum Jülich, as well as on numerous other scientific committees.