Guide rails for research

Five instead of eight – FAU has redefined its key research priorities. Anja Boßerhoff and Georg Schett explain in an interview why the University has taken this step and the process behind it.

Mr Schett, FAU has had five new key research priorities since 2024, it used to be eight. Does this mean FAU is carrying out less research than before?

Schett: Quite the opposite. We are one of the leading research universities in Germany and are searching for the answers to the most pressing issues of our times in a wide range of cooperations. This is exactly what is reflected in these new key research priorities and I am very grateful to Anja Boßerhoff for taking the initiative.

What prompted you to take this step, Ms Boßerhoff?

Boßerhoff: It was due to the Excellence Initiative at the beginning of 2023 where we participated with interdisciplinary clusters which bundled an incredibly wide range of expertise. FAU’s Senate asked itself whether FAU, as a university which offers the entire spectrum of academic disciplines, was adequately represented in the previous key research priorities. A greater number of key research priorities doesn’t automatically mean that everything is covered, especially because we have a very dynamic research landscape. The Senate’s intention was to define interdisciplinary fields of research that incorporate all disciplines and cooperations, also future ones.

This requires a good overview of the research structures at FAU.

Boßerhoff: Correct. None of us knows all of the research being carried out at the University, which is why the CRIS system was very useful. We asked Marcus Walther and Bastian Melsheimer at the FAU Competence Center Research Data and Information to carry out a thorough search and evaluation of the CRIS platform and inform us about which research cooperations FAU currently has. In addition, the Competence Centers, Profile Centers and Research Centers at FAU had already been defined and also had to be reflected in the new key research priorities.

Such as in “Targeting environmental and economic challenges”, to name one example…

Schett: This is where it becomes clear that we can only achieve this goal if all faculties work in close collaboration: science, engineering, medicine, economics and social sciences. In addition, it also becomes clear that the key research priorities do not each represent a faculty at FAU, even if there are also five of them. It was important to us to ensure that the new research priorities are visionary and inclusive, but detailed enough to include all the content that needs to be covered. I think we have succeeded in doing that.

In contrast to previous wording, the new priorities begin with the “gerund form”, i.e. “exploring”, “targeting”, “understanding”, “developing” and “engineering”. Is there a special reason for this?

Schett: This is not a coincidence and is in line with the development of FAU as a brand. In 2021, we changed our slogan from “Knowledge in motion” to “Moving knowledge”. This reflects our desire to emphasize the active nature of research. Knowledge does not “move” by itself; it is the result of the hard work and the passion that researchers invest in order to push their projects forward. We wanted to focus more on this “doing” in our key research priorities.

Boßerhoff: What’s interesting is that the verbs have taken on a life of their own and are used by FAU’s Marketing Department in the singular form in conjunction with the relevant symbol, so “Targeting” and the target symbol. In fact, this is exactly what researchers do: They focus on, explore, understand, develop and devise. We seem to have developed a viable concept, not only in terms of its content, but also in terms of the terminology we have chosen for it.

How does this development process work exactly – the Senate takes a vote and the result is binding for everyone?

Boßerhoff: No, that’s not how it works. We discussed everything in great detail in many meetings. The faculties are represented in the Senate and we also presented our concept for the University Governing Board to which all deans at FAU belong. This means our suggestions were communicated to the faculties and departments and we received constructive feedback that was incorporated into the final wording. I would say it was more of a bottom-up than a top-down process.

Which of your original suggestions were included in the final version?

Boßerhoff: There weren’t that many changes. The Faculty of Humanities, Social Sciences, and Theology and the Faculty of Business, Economics, and Law suggested adding the term “norms” to “Understanding cultural practices and social formations”. And Roland Busch, Chairperson of the University Council, suggested changing “Engineering transformative medicine” to “Engineering transformative healthcare”, because health involves more than just medical care. To date, there has not been any feedback from anyone who cannot live with the wording at all.

What does this new focus mean specifically for day to day operations in research at FAU?

Schett: What’s important is to remember that new research priorities aren’t far-off galaxies drifting somewhere in the ether, but are actually put into practice. And we are doing that because they determine what we do – not only in research, but also in teaching and in our relationships with people and organizations outside the University. They are the guidelines for forming the strategic profile of our University and strengthen the FAU brand. And they are open for all the topics and challenges in research that are yet to come.

Author: Matthias Münch

This article is part of the FAU magazine

Innovation, diversity and passion: Those are the three guiding principles of our FAU, as stated in our mission statement. At FAU, we live these guiding principles every day in all that we do – in research, in teaching and when it comes to sharing the knowledge created at our university with society.

This, the second issue of our FAU magazine, underlines all of the above: It shows researchers who tirelessly keep pushing the boundaries of what has been believed to be possible. It introduces students who work together to achieve outstanding results for their FAU, talks about teaching staff who pass on their knowledge with infectious enthusiasm and creativity. And it reports back on members of staff with foresight and a talent for getting to the crux of the matter who are dedicated to improving the (research) infrastructure at FAU as well as people in key positions who are there for their university and are committed to its research location.