Institute for Applied Research retreat
HFU sees itself as a research university and a driving force for the region. Research at HFU is currently organised in 14 research institutes and a higher-level Institute for Applied Research (IAF). This diversity requires exchange. To this end, the IAF members met in September for their annual retreat to discuss the future of research at HFU in challenging times. President Dr. Alexandra Bormann and Vice-president for Research and Sustainability, Prof. Dr. Christoph Reich, attended the conference and were able to take away a number of findings for further discussion in the Board of Executives.
A key topic was the new financial support for HFU research institutes, which is to be decided on 1 January. Four working groups considered how the funding could best be used for the university. It quickly became clear that HFU not only benefits greatly from this funding through third-party funding and publications, but also receives numerous impulses from the funded institutes in the areas of promoting young talent, transfer, and innovative and international teaching. The researchers agreed that their work in the many socially and technologically relevant research projects is an important building block for the attractiveness of the HFU as a competence partner outside of science as well.
Other topics included the further development of HFU's research profile, improved archiving and reuse of research data, and the question of how research-based transfer can be more strongly incorporated into performance measurement. A discussion on the design of internal selection procedures for calls for proposals, in which only a limited number of applications may be submitted, showed that research can sometimes only organise itself in order to find good, fact-based answers to external constraints.
Dr. Hanna Dotter introduced herself as a new member of the administrative office. In the future, she will primarily be responsible for research communication and will support the IAF team in application consulting.