How much reality is there in the German Science Policy?
- Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt
At the end of the semester the excellence cluster Simulation Technology (SimTech) from the University of Stuttgart issued invitations for its series of lectures „Excellence in dialogue“. The speaker was the Chairman of the Science Council and Leibniz prize winner, Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt. In his lecture he highlighted the reality content of the German Science Policy.
At the very latest since the plagiarism cases concerning ex-Minister Karl-Theodor zu Guttenberg, the German scientific community has been under special observation. The Science Policy is also affected by this. Whilst politics invokes real framework conditions in order to legitimise decisions, scientists and students frequently experience political actions an unreal open-heart surgery, according to the thesis of Prof. Wolfgang Marquardt. In the framework of the series of lectures „Excellence in dialogue“, which has now been organised for the second time by the excellence cluster SimTech from the University of Stuttgart, Marquardt highlighted this aspect in his lecture „Disneyland location? About the reality content of the German Science Policy“. The native of Böbling thereby attempted to mediate between both viewpoints by focussing on the following three aspects: the illusion of excellence, the reality of economics and the simulation of the future.
In the subsequent discussion the senate member of Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (DFG) answered questions posed by over 150 excellence researchers from SimTech. Finally SimTech invited all guests to a „get together“ in the research building at Pfaffenwaldring 5a.
In his lecture Marquardt returned to his student roots, where he had studied from 1976 until 1982 and graduated in process engineering at the University of Stuttgart. Today he is a professor of process engineering at RWTH Aachen. In 2001 he was awarded the Gottfried-Wilhelm-Leibniz Prize by Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft for his research work. He has been a member of the Science Council since 2010, and its chairman since February 2011.
About SimTech:
The University of Stuttgart was successful with its excellence cluster „Simulation Technology“ (SimTech) in November 2007 at the competition of the Excellence Initiative of the German Federation and the Federal States, which is supported on a federal level by DFG. The excellence cluster SimTech is the heart of the „ Stuttgart Research Centre for Simulation Technology“ (SRC SimTech), which the University of Stuttgart had already established in April 2007 using the university’s own funds. SRC SimTech is a supradisciplinary centre and consequently a connecting element between the faculties. The diverse range of expertise at the University of Stuttgart in the field of simulation technologies is bundled and further developed in the cluster. The aim is to position Stuttgart as an internationally leading location in this field in the long term. Along with broadly based fundamental research, teaching with own courses of study and a graduate school with over 80 doctoral students, the transfer to industrial application is also promoted. Notable companies, including Daimler and Bosch, support SimTech in a non-material way as well as financially.