Freedom for Research for € 300,000  [09.12.19]

Clear the way for science: For the fourth time, the Gips-Schüle-Stfitung conferred its prize for "Freedom for Research" to give scientists at the University of Hohenheim the opportunity to embark on major research projects. This year's award ceremony was different in that two projects impressed the jury so much that not only the 2019 award but also the 2020 award was presented. The 2019 Gips-Schüle Award went to Prof. Dr. Jana Seifert from the Institute of Animal Science for working on a grant proposal for a DFG research group on "Utilization Efficiency in Pigs." The 2020 Gips-Schüle Award went to Prof. Dr. Thomas Berger from the Institute of Agricultural Sciences in the Tropics for further developing HPC-capable simulation models. The Gips-Schüle-Stiftung will award € 150,000 to each project.

 

 

"We were faced with a real luxury problem," said President Stephan Dabbert as he greeted the guests at the award ceremony. "Prof. Dr. Jana Seifert's and Prof. Dr. Thomas Berger's applications were so outstanding that it seemed impossible for us to make a decision."

Neither sharing the award nor weighing the best two against each other would have done justice to the two outstanding applications, continued the President. "It is therefore all the better that we can present a double award this year - also thanks to the flexibility of the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung: Prof. Dr. Jana Seifert is receiving the award from the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung for 2019 and Prof. Dr. Thomas Berger the award for 2020."

"With the 'Freedom for Research' program, we want to give particularly promising scientists maximum freedom in implementing their research projects. The funding associated with the award is therefore not earmarked. The recipients should be free to decide how they want to use the money most sensibly," said Dr. Stefan Hofmann, Chairman of the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung.

 

A journey with great challenges

"But the Gips-Schüle Award is not just a solid budget that is open to topics and easy to use to address the research questions proposed by the two prize winners," explained Prof. Dr. Julia Fritz-Steuber, Vice President for Research and member of the jury. "The prizewinners thereby also promise to achieve a goal: The goal of finding an attractive research topic together with other researchers and advancing it in initial studies in order to finally submit a joint project with the partners to a major research funding institution."

It is a journey with the great challenge of putting together a team that will submit an innovative research proposal.

"Our two prizewinners are internationally recognized experts in their respective disciplines. Together with other scientists, they have acquired highly endowed third-party funded projects. They have the goal of their scientific journey clearly in their minds. And the University of Hohenheim will do its utmost to support them."

 

Sustainable use of animal feed

A DFG research group investigating the efficient use of feed in pigs: Prof. Dr. Jana Seifert from the Institute of Animal Science aims to achieve this goal. The research project will also serve to prepare an independent junior research group.

"The prize money is to be used to set up a project network with partners from the livestock sciences, physiology, microbiology, and bioinformatics, and thus serves as preparatory work for a Collaborative Research Center or an Excellence Initiative," said the scientist about her plans.

Prof. Dr. Seifert emphasized that there is currently an oversupply of nitrogen and phosphorus in livestock husbandry. Experts have also been warning about a global shortage of phosphorus for years. Both approaches will be dealt with in the DFG research group.

"The reduction of the protein and phosphorus components in pig feed could lead to health impairments and loss of performance. That is why we want to investigate the limits to which we can lower the protein and phosphorus supply in order to maintain constant performance without endangering the health of the animal."

The expert from the University of Hohenheim explained that one of the goals is to more efficiently conserve phosphorus as a resource. At the same time, the researchers also want to investigate whether there are other protein sources for feeding that have not been used so far. These hypotheses will be investigated with the prize money, promoting research into feed and animal welfare at the University of Hohenheim.

 

Transformation and policy analysis with high-performance computing

"Questions about adaptation, structural change, and innovation are of great concern to me, and I want to use the prize money from the Gips-Schüle-Stiftung to expand computer simulation even further in the direction of transformation and policy analysis," said Prof. Dr. Thomas Berger. "The Gips-Schüle Award gives me the freedom to immerse myself in this fascinating and innovative field of research. My goal is to be able to develop a new Hohenheim collaborative project from this, ideally a collaborative research center."

The bioeconomic model system at the University of Hohenheim uses high-performance computers in Karlsruhe and Stuttgart to generate large amounts of data that can potentially be evaluated more quickly and efficiently using modern machine learning methods. In October, Prof. Dr. Thomas Berger and the German Research Center for Artificial Intelligence (DLR) acquired the new research project "SimLearn" for this combination of high-performance computing and machine learning.

The Hohenheim computer model system was developed and used by the DFG research group "Regional Climate Change," in which an interdisciplinary team from the agricultural and environmental sciences was involved. The University of Hohenheim has thus already made an important contribution to climate impact and adaptation research. "Our model system takes into account the interactions among the atmosphere, land surface, plant growth, and land use."

The model system simulates in great detail the economic adaptation reactions of computer agents, which reflect changed land use decisions - something that no other model system in the world does. "After the very hot and dry summers of recent years, farmers are considering, for example, how they can make their crop rotations less susceptible to climate change by growing new crops," said the prizewinner. "This may require very costly investments in machinery and irrigation systems. This could further accelerate structural change in agriculture."

It is not yet possible to predict how digitalization will affect agriculture in the future and whether it will be able to fulfill the hopes it harbors for environmentally friendly, climate-neutral farming. "That is why we should not only discuss bans and taxes, but also calculate concrete alternatives for farming with computer simulations. Innovation and structural change often lead to loss of income and in extreme cases to social hardship, which should be compensated fairly. I would like to tackle this further with our Hohenheim model system."