Where is Hohenheim heading?  [11.06.19]

Where does the University of Hohenheim want to be in 5 years - and where is it today? What makes the "Hohenheimer Spirit" so special? This is the theme of a new brochure entitled "Strategy 2018-2022 - Bioeconomy and Digital Transformation". The Online Courier had a chat with University President Stephan Dabbert over a cup of coffee about the University's plans for the future.

Dabbert: Do you smell that?

Holds open brochure under his nose.

Freshly printed, but it doesn't smell of chemicals - it smells very slightly of dried grass. In the production of the paper, almost half of the wood cellulose was replaced by meadow plants, which, for example, accumulate on extensive agricultural areas and cannot be used as animal feed. Significantly less water and energy is required for processing. This is an example of applied bioeconomy.

 

I see, the medium is already part of the message. This is the first time the University has published such a brochure. What's it all about?

We are legally obligated to prepare a comprehensive strategy paper every 5 years, the Structure and Development Plan (SEP). It is very long, however, and the wording is also somewhat complicated.

But the issues in it are very close to my heart. After all, this is nothing less than the future of the University - and it affects all areas. Therefore, our idea was to create a reader-friendly short version with which you can get a quick overview and perhaps want to delve deeper into one or the other topic in the SEP. The contents were also prepared for a website.

"Bioeconomics" is a major cross-faculty research topic that the University already took up 5 years ago in the SEP. Now a second term is added to the title: "Digital Transformation".

Isn't such a focus a little ambitious for a University without a faculty of computer science?

I don't see it that way. Digital transformation pervades our everyday lives - and of course it also massively changes the areas we are researching at Hohenheim: Think, for example, of artificial intelligence in agricultural technology, the transformation of the financial sector through Big Data, or the growing importance of social media for politics.

Hohenheim scientists have been investigating these changes and their effects more and more intensively for years. At the same time, digitization enables completely new research approaches, such as predicting droughts on the basis of extensive data, including those generated by the operation of modern agricultural machinery, which, for example, allow conclusions to be drawn about soil moisture.

The digital transformation is therefore not an additional research focus, but a cross-cutting topic that already today connects all existing focal points with each other - and will gain even more relevance in the future.

 

How exactly is this development to be driven forward at the University in the coming years?

An important way this will be done is reorienting vacant professorships and establishing new professorships with relevant focal points. The new fields of business informatics in agribusiness, bioinformatics, food informatics, business mathematics and data science, and artificial intelligence in agricultural engineering are planned or already filled.

Cross-faculty networking is also important: although Hohenheim scientists are investigating very different topics, they sometimes use quite similar methods, for example when it comes to evaluating huge amounts of data or modelling complex systems. By 2021, the Computational Science Lab will be the central location for this exchange on the newly acquired campus site at Steckfeldstraße 2/4.

In addition, we want to realize the idea of a new Master's degree in "Digital Transformation", which, like the Bioeconomy Master's degree, is aimed at graduates of all Hohenheim Bachelor's degree programs and is offered jointly by the three faculties.

With a view to the coming years, the brochure names four major goals. Goal no. 1 is: " Enhance Hohenheim's Profile". Can you explain that for me?

Hohenheim has positioned itself in three research areas of particular social relevance: Bioeconomy, Global Food Security and Ecosystems, and Health Sciences.

Compared to large universities such as Stuttgart or Heidelberg, the University of Hohenheim is a specialist. Although we cover significantly fewer research fields, we are extraordinarily successful in these niches. Regular top rankings in agricultural, nutritional, and food science underpin this.

The fact that scientists at Hohenheim work closely together, even across subject and faculty boundaries, contributes to our success. This is facilitated by our beautiful, compact campus with its short distances and the Palace that gives Hohenheim its identity.

In order to be able to compete successfully with other universities in the future, we want to concentrate even more on our unique selling propositions. For example, we hope that the name Hohenheim will not only be associated with the topic of bioeconomy throughout Germany, but also internationally.

 

Is all this just about research?

No. I have already mentioned the planned degree program "Digital Transformation". In addition, we also want to create further degree programs that are unique in Germany, in which Hohenheim profile topics are taught. The model is the Bioeconomy Master, which is also in great demand internationally.

Another unique selling point for Hohenheim is the award-winning reform project "Humboldt reloaded," which implements the Humboldt idea of the unity of research and teaching in a special, modern way. We will continue to do everything in our power to maintain and establish this approach as a Hohenheim trademark.

 

In addition, the University plans to further develop structures...

If we want to strengthen our research, we must of course create the necessary conditions for this. I already mentioned the new Computational Science Lab.

In 2018, however, we were also able to announce the greatest funding success in decades: The University will receive a good €50 million for a new top research institution entitled the Hohenheim Center for Livestock Microbiom Research (HoLMiR). New buildings with a total area of 3,500 m² are being built behind the Biology Building and at the Meiereihof. It will investigate complex interactions between farm animals and the billions of microorganisms in their digestive tract and other organs. Construction is scheduled to start in 2020.

We would like to build on this and acquire or develop further profile-building or supporting infrastructure facilities. To this end, it is necessary, for example, to promote large research alliances with strong university and non-university partners.

In the area of teaching, a comprehensive reform of quality management is currently underway. Up to now, each degree program has been individually assessed at regular intervals by external agencies. With the introduction of system accreditation, we are now taking quality management into our own hands. Instead of achieving selective improvements, we want to look at Hohenheim as a study location as a whole and develop the degree programs even more systematically and continuously.

Goal No. 3 is: "Increase attractiveness for the most innovative minds"...

We want to attract outstanding young and innovative people from all over the world and promote our own talents even more systematically.

To this end, we will be working at very different levels, including expanding personnel development in the scientific field, further developing the doctoral system with the help of the Graduate Academy, optimizing selection processes in order to identify the best minds at all qualification levels, further internationalizing studies and teaching, and pursuing targeted student marketing in order to recruit the best students for Hohenheim.

As far as top-level research is concerned, Hohenheim has recently had to accept a bitter disappointment. The University of Hohenheim's cluster application was not successful in the allocation of billions of euros in research within the framework of the federal government's excellence strategy.

 

Nevertheless, goal no. 4 reads as if Hohenheim did not want to give up the claim to play in the first university league...

That's right. Our goal is to even be involved in two cluster applications in the next round of the Excellence Strategy.

In recent years, the University has particularly strengthened research areas with great potential through targeted appointment policies, structural measures, and new incentive systems. We want to continue along this path.

The fact that Hohenheim scientists are certainly able to be successful in highly competitive competitions is shown by the €50 million funding success for the HoLMiR project in the animal sciences.

Other major research successes included the extension of the DFG research group "Regional Climate Change" (FOR 1695), the recruitment of the DFG research group P-FOWL on phosphorus and animal health (FOR 2601), the leading role in the EU joint project GRACE on biomass production on marginal areas, and membership in the core and founding team of the EU Knowledge and Innovation Community (KIC) EIT Food, from which the new Food Systems Master has emerged.

By the way: the effort required for the cluster application in the last round of the Excellence Strategy call was not in vain. The Climate Variability Research Network is currently preparing a proposal for a Collaborative Research Centre at the DFG on the basis of this preliminary work.

 

We'll report. Thank you very much for the interview!

 

Interview: Leonhardmair; Translation: Neudorfer