In short

I am Director-General for Research for Technological Sovereignty and Innovation at the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Before joining the BMBF, I was Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Open Communication Systems (FOKUS), Professor for Quality Engineering of Open Distributed Systems (QDS) at Technische Universität Berlin (TUB) and Director of the Weizenbaum Institute for the Networked Society – The German Internet Institute. I am member of the National Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and have been a member of the German Advisory Council on Global Change (WBGU), the Hightech Forum 2025 (HTF), the Science Platform Sustainability 2030 (WPN2030) and the Board of Technologiestiftung Berlin (TSB). I received awards for my scientific work such as the EUREKA Innovation Award and the Alfried Krupp von Bohlen und Halbach Award for Young Professors.

My major steps in applied research.

Although I spent my professional life basically in Berlin, I had the joy to work internationally as well as on different topics and with very different partners from research, industry, NGOs and government. Below, I share with you some of my motivations and thoughts.