Press release: Göttingen University secures 30 million in grant money

Nr. 11/2013 - 30.01.2013

State of Lower Saxony supports strategic development with profile raising, young researcher mentoring and infrastructural improvements

(pug) Göttingen University has secured grant money totalling 30 million Euros from the State of Lower Saxony. With this state support for strategic development, the University is able to continue successful projects from the first programme phase of the Excellence Initiative. At the same time, it is implementing those measures of the new institutional strategy which received positive evaluations in the second phase of the Excellence Initiative. The stated objectives aim to raise the University’s profile, further expand its research infrastructure and promote young researchers. “Thanks to this grant, the completion funding from the German Research Foundation (DFG) and our own efforts, we can shape Göttingen’s future as a hub of scientific development”, emphasised University President Professor Ulrike Beisiegel.

The University will continue the Courant Research Centres, Free-Floater Junior Research Groups and the Lichtenberg Centre for Advanced Studies, all from the first programme phase of the Excellence Initiative. New professorships in the neurosciences and interdisciplinary religious studies will sharpen the University’s research profile. To be able to maintain the nearly 30 academic collections and use them more intensively in teaching and research, a central curator, a central collection fund and a new research position for working with the collections will be established – a concept that received particularly high marks from the international expert group in the second phase of the Excellence Initiative.

Another area Göttingen University will continue to focus on is the promotion of young researchers, especially in the humanities. Alongside transparent career opportunities in academia, the University supports its PhD candidates and post-docs by offering special programmes to help them acquire skills that are also useful outside the academic sphere. In addition, its gender equality and internationalisation strategies are also aligned to provide greater structural support to academics and scientists at the Göttingen Research Campus.