Four new Helmholtz Alliances to be launched

The Helmholtz Association has decided to fund four new Helmholtz Alliances, in which Helmholtz Centres team up with universities and/or non-university research partners and pool their expertise to make rapid progress and achieve international visibility in strategically important areas of research  ranging from diabetes research to remote sensing, robotics and liquid metal technologies. A total of €50 million in funding has been made available for the four new Helmholtz Alliances from the Initiative and Networking Fund.

“Helmholtz Alliances develop tremendous influence in their respective research areas. The links between the research groups in the alliances create enormous synergy and strengthen the competitive position of German research on the international level. This has been confirmed by an interim evaluation of the existing Helmholtz Alliances,” says Prof. Jürgen Mlynek, President of the Helmholtz Association. “That’s why we are continuing to bank on Helmholtz Alliances as a flexible instrument that complements and enhances the Helmholtz Association’s mid-term and long-term research programmes and creates innovative networks by involving universities as our privileged research partners.”

Helmholtz Alliances are entitled to up to €3 million of funding a year from the Initiative and Networking Fund, plus an equal amount provided by the Helmholtz Centres, over a period of five years. The Initiative and Networking Fund is a central instrument of the Helmholtz Association, which allows it to launch initiatives and projects in and across Helmholtz Centres quickly and flexibly. The four newly funded Helmholtz Alliances are introduced in the following.

Imaging and Curing Environmental Metabolic Diseases – ICEMED

Environmental metabolic diseases such as obesity and type 2 diabetes represent some of the biggest challenges faced by the healthcare systems in modern societies. In the Helmholtz Alliance “Imaging and Curing Environmental Metabolic Diseases – ICEMED” scientists from four Helmholtz Centres will conduct research with university research partners, biomedical specialists and experts in imaging techniques. They will have access to high-resolution MRI scans and the combined 9.4-T MR-PET device at the Forschungszentrum Jülich – the only one of its kind in the world – which will allow them to observe metabolic processes in the brain.   The aim is to shed light on pathophysiological mechanisms that are not yet understood and develop active pharmaceutical ingredients for the treatment and prevention of obesity and type 2 diabetes. The alliance’s activities will run the gamut from basic research to clinical studies.

Total project funding: €30 million

Helmholtz Centres:
Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU)
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) Berlin-Buch
German Cancer Research Centre (DKFZ) Heidelberg

External partners: University of Cologne, University of Cambridge, Universität Leipzig, Yale University, Charité (Berlin), University Medical Center Schleswig-Holstein (Lübeck), Heinrich Heine University Düsseldorf, Eberhard Karls Universität Tübingen, University Hospital Carl Gustav Carus Dresden, University of Freiburg, University of Duisburg-Essen, RWTH Aachen University, Max Planck Institute for Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences (Leipzig), Sanofi-Aventis Deutschland GmbH (Frankfurt)

Scientific coordinator: Prof. Mathias Tschöp, HMGU

Robotic Exploration of Extreme Environments - ROBEX

The Helmholtz Alliance ROBEX aims to pool expertise gained in lunar expeditions and deep sea investigations  to identify, develop and test technologies that will allow the exploration of highly inaccessible terrain, including areas on earth with extreme environmental conditions, such as the deep sea and polar regions, as well as other planets. The alliance will focus on developing a modular, robotic infrastructure that can function semi-autonomously.

Total project funding: €30 million

Helmholtz Centres:
Alfred Wegener Institute for Polar and Marine Research (AWI)
German Aerospace Center (DLR)
Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)

External partners: Center for Marine Environmental Sciences (MARUM), Jacobs University Bremen, Technische Universität München, Technische Universität Kaiserlautern, Technische Universität Berlin, Technische Universität Dresden, German Research Center for Artifical Intelligence (DFKI)

Scientific coordinator: Prof. Karin Lochte, AWI

Remote Sensing and Earth System Dynamics

The aim of this Helmholtz Alliance is to develop innovative satellite products that can be provided by the new generation of remote sensing satellites. Future space-based remote sensing systems, offering higher spatial and temporal resolution than ever before, will provide crucial data for quantifying dynamic processes in the hydrosphere, geosphere, cryosphere and biosphere, allowing scientists to monitor and gain a better understanding of global environmental change.  Research within the Alliance will focus on four main areas: the biosphere (in particular, gathering data on forests, changes in biomass and the carbon cycle), the geosphere (topographic change, earthquakes and volcanic activity), the hydrosphere (soil moisture, the water cycle) and the cryosphere (receding ice, permafrost). The alliance aims to develop and strengthen collaboration between scientists working in the Space and Earth and Environment research areas and form the nucleus of an innovative network linking over 60 internationally recognised research centres.

Total project funding: €20 million

Helmholtz Centres:
Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research (UFZ)
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
Helmholtz Centre Potsdam ? German Research Centre for Geosciences (GFZ)
Helmholtz Zentrum München (HMGU)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Alfred Wegener Institute (AWI)
Helmholtz Centre for Ocean Research Kiel (GEOMAR)
German Aerospace Center (DLR)

External partners: Max Planck Institute for Meteorology (Hamburg), Technische Universität München, Friedrich Schiller University Jena, University of Innsbruck, Forest Stewardship Council FSC (Bonn), Swiss Federal Institute of Technology Zurich (ETH Zurich), Potsdam Institute for Climate Impact Research (PIK), University of Potsdam, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München (LMU), Federal Institute for Geosciences and Natural Resources (Hannover), Philipps-Universität Marburg, University of Hamburg KlimaCampus

Scientific coordinators: Prof. Alberto Moreira, DLR / Prof. Irena Hajnsek, DLR/ETH Zurich

Liquid Metal Technologies (LIMTECH)

The field of liquid metal technologies is surprisingly broad in the areas of basic and applied research it encompasses. These include high-temperature energy transfer (e.g. in concentrated solar thermal plants), liquid metal batteries, solar silicon production, carbon-free hydrogen production, the use of liquid metal targets in neutron sources and transmutation plants, applications in metallurgy, cast metal production and crystal growing, and laboratory experiments in the fields of geophysics and astrophysics.  Reliable methods for the precise measurement of liquid metal flow characteristics have become available in the past few years that have allowed researchers to make enormous scientific progress and ensure the safe operation of liquid metal facilities. The Helmholtz Alliance LIMTECH aims to advance these developments further   by pooling the expertise of researchers – in particular from the HZDR, KIT and a number of universities – in the field of liquid metal technologies to achieve key technological breakthroughs. Its research will focus on questions relating to increasing energy efficiency and resource efficiency.

Total project funding: €20 million

Helmholtz Centres:
Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR)
Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
Forschungszentrum Jülich (FZJ)
German Aerospace Center (DLR)

External partners: Ilmenau University of Technology, Technische Universität Dresden, Leibniz Universität Hannover, TU Bergakademie Freiberg, University of Potsdam, University of Göttingen, RWTH Aachen University, Institute of Physics, University of Latvia, Coventry University (UK)

Scientific coordinator: Dr Gunter Gerbeth, HZDR

For more information on the Helmholtz Alliances, see: www.helmholtz.de/allianzen