It’s our birthday: 30 years ago, the Association of Large-Scale Research Facilities became the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres. Today, our work is more important than ever. Germany and the world are facing enormous changes – whether due to climate change, the energy transition or digitalization. To overcome these challenges, we need strong research organizations like the Helmholtz Association, but also a robust political framework. In our viewpoint section, Helmholtz President Otmar D. Wiestler calls for an even stronger alliance between science and industry - which would require e.g. the strategic bundling of research and innovation in a single federal ministry. In an interview with table.media, Wiestler comments on his positions. In addition, Bernd Rech, Helmholtz Vice-President and Chairman of the Helmholtz Center Berlin, gives us an overview of the state of energy research: Where do we stand and what do we need to do to achieve the goals of the energy transition?

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As the principal investigator in the field, Frank Wilhelms – a glaciologist at the Alfred Wegener Institute, Helmholtz Centre for Polar and Marine Research (AWI) and professor at Göttingen University – reports from Antarctica: “It’s fascinating that we have now actually succeeded in drilling ice that is between 800,000 and 1.2 million years old, exactly where we had predicted it based on our preliminary explorations: at a depth range of between 2426 and 2490 meters.”

This range reflects the transition of the middle Pleistocene, when glacial cycles slowed down from 41,000-year to 100,000-year intervals. Earth’s orbital parameters such as tilt angle, solar radiation and ice albedo are what determine these cycles. But why the Earth system suddenly shifted in this way remains one of the greatest mysteries of climate science, which this project aims to solve. Understanding the frequency of glacial cycles is not only important for grasping the history of the planet and humanity, but also for our future.

Once the ice cores have been brought back to Europe, the project will focus on analyzing them to uncover the history of the Earth’s climate and atmosphere over the last 1.2 million years, and likely beyond – in the lowest sections of the core, there may even be older ice from before the Quaternary period. The underlying rock will also be dated to find out when this region of Antarctica was last ice-free.

To AWI Press Release

Developing a CRISPR therapy for muscular dystrophy
Researchers at the Experimental and Clinical Research Center in Berlin are now developing a targeted treatment for muscular dystrophy with the help of gene-editing. Preclinical research led by the Spuler Lab and published in “Nature Communications” now paves the way for first-in-human clinical trials. Read more

Artificial gills for ocean gliders
Autonomous underwater robots, such as ocean gliders, are essential tools for marine research. Most of these systems are powered by lithium batteries, which come with significant drawbacks. To overcome them, scientists at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Hereon have now developed a new energy system. Using hydrogen as an energy source, it is significantly more sustainable than lithium batteries and offers ocean gliders greater range. And the truly unique feature: employing membrane technology, it extracts oxygen from seawater – just like a fish’s gills. Read more

Photo: Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin/Silvia Zerbe

Katrin Tietz is a mechanical engineer and heads the mechanical production workshop at the Helmholtz-Zentrum Berlin (HZB), where scientific equipment is built with great precision.

As the head of mechanical production at the HZB, I never have a boring day. Everyone in my team of 23, including 5 trainees, see themselves as service providers for the scientific community. Every day brings new and exciting challenges, whether it’s being called in for a quick repair or providing precision-engineered experimental setups for research on lithium-sulfur batteries, for example. When scientists use the equipment that we build to make new discoveries, and we even get mentioned in the paper, that’s our greatest reward.

I would immediately start construction of the planned new large-scale facility at the HZB, BESSY III – using all the innovative research equipment that is currently available, needless to say. This would also include a new, modern central workshop at one location; up to now we have been working at two locations, Berlin-Adlershof and Berlin-Wannsee. The workshop would, of course, be equipped with the latest technologies.

I would like to talk to Albert Einstein. I am fascinated by the fact that he was not only a great scientist, but also a true “citizen of the world,” not to mention his humanitarian, pacifist attitude. Since I am very interested in politics and history, I would ask him about the parallels between the time between the world wars and today. He would surely have some advice on how to counter the global political shift to the right. Maybe he could even explain quantum physics to me...

When the Trump administration announces the establishment of a $500 billion AI project just one day after his inauguration, it is, like many things these days, an act. Behind it, however, is a serious decision about what direction to take, not to mention a clear signal to China and Europe. The Chinese AI startup DeepSeek, on the other hand, has surprised the world with a language model that was trained with a fraction of the resources and yet appears to be on par with the competition. With new federal elections looming in Germany, these developments should serve as a wake-up call to prepare for an innovation race the likes of which we’ve never seen before.

We are facing enormous transformations in almost all the areas of life that will shape our future: the urgently needed energy transition, dealing with worsening climate change, the mobility transition, and innovative healthcare. Artificial intelligence will play a decisive role in each of these areas. However, when competing with the USA and China, we must not simply copy their strategies, but must play to our own strengths – in particular the high quality of our research data, and our experience with foundation models. Our success at the Helmholtz Association is based on strategically linking our research fields with data science.

For real innovation success, we will need an even stronger alliance between science and industry in the future. Together, we must work on completely new technologies and attain a leading global position in the innovation competition. In the coming years, we will have to think beyond the automotive industry, which is still the most important industrial sector today, and open up new future markets – including the medical sector, as I explained a few weeks ago together with Michael Kaschke from the Stifterverband.

With a series of regional and thematic innovation clusters, we would have the potential to boost development in future-critical fields. To achieve this, however, we must also try out new constellations of cooperation and new financing models, such as bolder combinations of public and private funding or tax incentives for private research and innovation funding. Of course, we will need to invest in modern education and talent from all over the world. Together, we need to enhance our welcoming culture and reduce the hurdles to international recruiting.

To achieve these goals, research and innovation must be given a prominent place on the agenda of the new federal government in the coming legislative period. Germany deserves a federal ministry with a new structure and highly competent management, one where these two areas are brought together strategically. The problem we face today is that our research is anchored in different ministries, and the current structures are not always conducive to innovation. For example, pursuing the energy transition is made more difficult when it is basically handled by the BMWK, but future technologies are negotiated on at the BMBF. On the other hand, the proposal of some stakeholders for a digital ministry seems to me too short-sighted. Digitalization should not be bundled in one ministry but must necessarily permeate all areas – from health to energy systems, climate, mobility and finance.

Finally, the new ministry must consistently focus on reducing bureaucracy in order to finally break up the “Silicon Valley” of bureaucracy in our country. Bureaucracy reduction could be implemented within a few weeks after the election as part of an immediate program to promote Germany as a research location – at no cost, of course. The proposals are on the table. Anyone who ignores them is endangering our future viability.

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Published by: Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres, Anna-Louisa-Karsch-Str.2, 10178 Berlin

Editors: Sebastian Grote, Franziska Roeder, Martin Trinkaus
Questions to the editors should be sent to monthly@helmholtz.de

Photo credit: Phil Dera (Editorial)

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