Information on the event
Under the event title ‘Future.ERC’, Prof. Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC), Minister of Science Falko Mohrs, Prof. Dr. Ing. Nils Goseberg from TU Braunschweig (Leichtweiß Institute for Hydraulic Engineering, Coastal Research Centre; ERC Consolidator Grant 2024) and Prof. Dr Philippe van Baßhuysen from Leibniz Universität Hannover (Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences; ERC Starting Grant 2024) discussed the question: ‘What framework conditions does excellent research need? Strategies and opportunities for Lower Saxony and Europe’.
ERC President Prof. Maria Leptin said: ‘Wonderful that Lower Saxony's initiative works so well, an inspiration to support top science.’
On the panel were:
Prof Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC)
The German developmental biologist Prof. Dr rer. nat. Maria Leptin has been President of the European Research Council (ERC) since November 2021. This is a science-led institution set up by the European Commission to promote excellent European scientists. Leptin studied mathematics and biology in Bonn and Heidelberg and began her professional career at the Basel Institute for Immunology. In 1984, she went to the Laboratory of Molecular Biology in Cambridge as a postdoctoral researcher. From 1989, Leptin worked at the Max Planck Institute for Developmental Biology in Tübingen. In 1994, she was appointed Professor at the Institute of Genetics at the University of Cologne. She also worked as a guest lecturer in Paris and as a visiting researcher at the Wellcome Trust Sanger Institute in the UK. In 2010, she became Director of the European Molecular Biology Organisation.
Falko Mohrs, Minister for Science and Culture of Lower Saxony
Falko Mohrs was born in Wolfsburg on 23 July 1984. He completed a dual study programme as a forwarding agent and business graduate (FH) at Volkswagen AG and the Ostfalia University of Applied Sciences. He then worked as an assistant to the managing director, sub-department head and then production coordinator at Volkswagen AG in Wolfsburg. He was a member of the Bundestag from 2017 to 2022 and a member of the Committee on Economic Affairs and Energy, the Digital Agenda Committee, the Subcommittee on Regional Economic Policy and ERP Economic Plans and the Study Commission on Artificial Intelligence. Falko Mohrs has been Lower Saxony's Minister for Science and Culture since 8 November 2022. He was also appointed Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Volkswagen Foundation. In February 2023, the Ministry of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation launched ‘zukunft.niedersachsen’, the largest science programme in the history of the state of Lower Saxony.
Prof. Dr.-Ing Nils Goseberg
Since the beginning of 2018, Goseberg has represented the Department of Hydromechanics, Coastal Engineering and Maritime Engineering at the Leichtweiß Institute of Hydraulic Engineering at TU Braunschweig in research and teaching. He is also Deputy Managing Director of the Coastal Research Centre, which is run jointly with the University of Hanover. Floods such as those in the Ahr valley and storm surges in extreme weather conditions are on the increase due to climate change. The deadliest flooding phenomena to which our villages and towns on the coasts are exposed are tsunamis. The aim of his ‘AngryWaters’ project is to develop a simulation tool to better predict how far inland the water will penetrate with existing buildings. The scientist has now been awarded the prestigious Consolidator Grant from the European Research Council (ERC), which is funding his project with around two million euros over five years.
Prof Dr Philippe van Basshuysen
Philippe van Basshuysen has held the Chair of Public Health Ethics at the Centre for Ethics and Law in the Life Sciences (CELLS) at Leibniz University Hannover since 2024. His research focuses on areas including public health, the development and use of new technologies and the design and regulation of markets, incorporating perspectives from philosophy, politics and economics. At CELLS, he teaches courses in public health ethics and philosophy, politics and economics (PPE).
Philippe van Basshuysen holds a PhD in Philosophy from the London School of Economics (Ph.D. 2019). Prior to that, he studied Philosophy, Mathematics and Social Sciences at the Ruprecht-Karls-Universität Heidelberg, the National Autonomous University of Mexico (B.A., 2013) and the London School of Economics (M.Sc., 2014). From 2019-2022, van Basshuysen was a postdoctoral researcher at Leibniz University Hannover and assistant professor at Wageningen University (Netherlands).
