What are the tasks of the IME Board of Trustees?
The Board of Trustees provides independent advice, serves as sounding board, and facilitates networking for the institute's management, as well as for scientists at the institute. It currently consists of 11 members. At Board meetings we discuss whether the institute is on track with its priorities and projects in accordance with the Fraunhofer principles and whether the right future topics with economic application potential are being addressed. The Board of Trustees also discusses where it sees further important fields of application and where, for example, funding opportunities exist. Therefore, the Board of Trustees includes representatives of funding bodies, the scientific community and small and large companies. The network of Board members is also important in this context, as it can help to establish contacts and identify exploitation options. The Board of Trustees is therefore not comparable to a supervisory board in a company which also has economic control functions. Nevertheless, we also provide advice on economic issues as far as possible. In addition, we contact the Fraunhofer Executive Board if important institute issues need to be given greater visibility there.
What were your biggest challenges on the Board of Trustees?
Generally speaking, the institute has performed extremely well over the years, and the Board’s tasks often simply consisted of congratulating the institute's management and staff on their great successes. But of course, there were also challenges. The Board was able to provide support on several issues.
One example that certainly comes to mind is when Prof. Dr. Fischer left the institute in 2017 and a new form of institute management was established. A multi-director management structure was new territory for Fraunhofer, and a way had to be found to manage the institute on an interim basis while satisfying everybody. Ultimately, one person was appointed as interim director by Fraunhofer headquarters, but the management team functioned excellently as a team. At the time, this management committee also had to deal with very challenging issues, as the international activities in the USA and Chile needed to be consolidated.
Then came the spin-off of translational medicine into the newly created Fraunhofer ITMP under the leadership of Prof. Dr. Dr. Gerd Geisslinger. This step was certainly the right one, as the 2015 strategy audit had already shown that although the institute was working very successfully, it had simply become too large and too diverse to be able to implement a coherent, future-oriented overall strategy. The separation was also a significant change for the Board of Trustees, which had just successfully integrated several new members and was now reduced by half.
Furthermore, the appointment of the current institute management with Prof. Dr. Stefan Schillberg and Prof. Dr. Christoph Schäfers should be mentioned, as it took far too long in my view. Incidentally, I had the privilege of representing the Board of Trustees in the Fraunhofer Appointment Committee in this matter.
Additional challenges were the new buildings in Schmallenberg and Giessen and the sometimes inadequate cooperation with Fraunhofer headquarters.
Currently, it is becoming apparent that the economic situation in Germany is also impacting contract research and research funding, which is compounded by increased costs due to energy and the new infrastructure at the IME. But the IME has mastered a number of challenges and, with its competent and committed management and its outstanding scientists, will also be able to cope with these current issues.
Fraunhofer Institute for Molecular Biology and Applied Ecology IME