Press release: New President intends to increase scope for creative endeavours

Nr. 4/2011 - 24.01.2011

In the presence of more than 600 guests from the domains of science and scholarship, business and politics, the University of Göttingen officially celebrated the handing over of its Presidency on January 10, 2011. Professor Dr. Ulrike Beisiegel, a biochemist formerly based in Hamburg, is the first woman to head the University. She succeeds Professor Dr. Kurt von Figura, who has held the office since 2005. In her inaugural speech at the Göttingen Stadthalle, Professor Beisiegel said: “University teaching has to be rooted in the latest scientific findings – it must be research-based. Consequently, my goal for our University is to provide the space needed for creative endeavour through a well-directed deceleration in the processes of science and scholarship. The objective is to raise the quality of research significantly and awaken the interest of students, so that out of their own curiosity they will continue to think about the issues and content that they have encountered.” She stated that it is her intention to further expand the cooperation with the non-university research institutions on the Göttingen Research Campus, established through the University’s Institutional Strategy.

The Chairman of Göttingen University’s Foundation Council, Dr. Wilhelm Krull, thanked Professor von Figura for his outstanding work for the University, referring to “something of a Göttingen miracle in the years 2005 to 2010”. Dr. Krull went on: “We are deeply convinced that Professor Beisiegel can lead the Georgia Augusta, and with it the Göttingen Research Campus, into a brilliant future. Not only has she proved herself a researcher of note, but she is a committed and recognised personality in the fields of research promotion and science policy. Her activities within the German Research Foundation, for example, as a Senator of the Leibniz Association, and in the Scientific Commission of the German Council of Science and Humanities, underline her outstanding reputation as an unswerving, courageous and clear-sighted leader with great communicative abilities.”

The Prime Minister of Lower Saxony, David McAllister, highlighted the fact that Professor Beisiegel is the first woman in the history of Göttingen University to stand at its head: “There could scarcely be an advisor and manager better placed to overcome the hurdles on the way to renewed success in the Excellence Initiative. By asking the right questions, you will no doubt give impulses that motivate those involved to achieve peak performance – peak performance for success in the Excellence Initiative as well as in other scientific and scholarly challenges.”

Ulrike Beisiegel, born in 1952, studied human biology in Marburg. Her doctorate was conferred in 1979 following doctoral degree studies at the Department of Medicine in Marburg. Post-doctoral research took her to the Department of Molecular Genetics at the University of Texas in Dallas (USA), where she worked with Josef L. Goldstein and Michael S. Brown, who were later awarded the Nobel Prize. After returning to Marburg, she took up a position at the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg in 1984. In 1990 she gained her Habilitation at Hamburg University, where in 1996 she was appointed to a C3 professorship. In 2001 she became Director of the Institute for Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at the Universitätsklinikum Hamburg-Eppendorf and was appointed to a C4 professorship.

Professor Beisiegel has held the functions of spokesperson of the German Research Foundation’s Ombudsman Commission and chair of the Scientific Commission of the German Council of Science and the Humanities. She is a Senator of the Leibniz Association and sits on many national and international scientific boards. The holder of an honorary doctorate from the Swedish University of Umeå, Professor Beisiegel is the recipient of numerous other scientific distinctions and awards.

In March 2010 the University Senate elected Professor Beisiegel unanimously to the office of President of the University of Göttingen, Foundation under Public Law. The vote was subsequently endorsed by Göttingen University’s Foundation Committee pertaining to the University.