How can you supply megacities with clean drinking water? Which innovative technologies can provide early warning of dangerous earth slides? These are questions on which Professor Rafig Azzam is focusing his attention. The Jordanian-born scientist has held the chair of engineering geology and hydrogeology at RWTH Aachen, one of Germany’s excellence universities, since 2002. His subjects, environmental and water management, are becoming increasingly important – and also developing a strong magnetic attraction for international students: the professor is currently supervising four Chinese PhD students. Rafig Azzam is a networker, a knowledge manager who tirelessly establishes links abroad and concludes cooperative partnerships: "Science needs international networks. And the network grows larger with every PhD student that engages in international work or comes to us from abroad."
Dr. Damaris Odeny from Kenya is also one of the links in the knowledge network that connects Germany with the world. Until the middle of 2009 the molecular biologist worked on decoding the genetic blueprint of the potato at the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research in Cologne. Her goal was to improve harvests using more resilient plants. What fascinates Damaris Odeny most about her work? "The fact that it has the potential to change people’s lives." Here the 36-year-old Kenyan is thinking above all about her own country: "I come from a land where hunger still exists," she says. "And that’s the case although we have good soils and a favourable climate." That’s why she made a conscious decision to return to Kenya after her studies in Germany: "The important thing for me is not extending my list of publications. I want to make a difference for my country." Her big dream, however, is her own research institute that meets European standards. "I hope that what I have learnt at the Max Planck Institute will enable me to reach a scientific level in Kenya comparable to that in Europe," she says.
Research as a global bond
Rafig Azzam and Damaris Odeny represent exemplary models of what "Connecting Worlds of Knowledge" stands for. This was the motto under which the Federal Foreign Office launched the Research and Academic Relations Initiative in 2009. It sees science and research as a central bond between Germany and its partners around the world. Global challenges like climate change and research into renewable energies or combating pandemics are global issues to which researchers worldwide are seeking solutions. "Bacteria don’t stop at frontiers and neither should scientists," says Professor Seyed Hasnain, infection biologist and vice-chancellor of the University of Hyderabad in India. The tuberculosis expert is conducting research in Germany during 2009 as recipient of a Humboldt Research Award. He has worked closely with Professor Jörg Hacker, the president of the Robert Koch Institute in Berlin for ten years. Together, they founded the Indo-German Liaison Office (IGLO), which has already initiated a dozen research partnerships.
It was Germany’s leading role in the field of renewable energies that attracted Brazilian engineer Patricia Chaves to Germany: she specialized in this field with an English-language Master’s programme at Oldenburg University that is specifically aimed at graduates from emerging and developing countries. Today the 33-year-old is a PhD student at the German Wind Energy Institute (DEWI) in Wilhelmshaven. "I was also interested in Germany," she says, "a country that started again from scratch over 60 years ago and today leads the world in environmental technology." That’s how the global knowledge society improves understanding between societies and cultures almost in passing.
When it comes to innovation, international knowledge transfer also acts as a catalyst for new ideas. That’s why research and academic relations politcy is also closely bound up with the commitment to Germany as a research and business location. "The quality of German universities is evident," says Professor Liqiu Meng. The woman from China is vice-president of the Technical University in Munich and one of her main tasks involves advancing the internationalization of the renowned excellence university. She believes that "Germany has perhaps the highest concentration of the best universities in Europe. If we manage to strengthen our image throughout the world, we will be able to recruit the best brains – among students too."
Professor Karlheinz Brandenburg, for example, is someone whose outstanding work is acknowledged and above all "heard" all over the world. The director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Digital Media Technology (IDMT) in Ilmenau is one of the stars of German research: as the person responsible for the foundations for the development of the MP3 format, the world’s most successful format for sound data, he provided the impetus for an enormous high-tech success and a revolution in the music industry. "Against the background of global competition, creativity and innovation play a key role," says the scientist. Although doors opened up for him everywhere after his MP3 success, he decided to build a Fraunhofer Institute in the small town of Ilmenau in Thuringia. Today his renown and the high profile of his institute attract young researchers from far beyond Germany’s borders – like Hanna Lukashevich from Belarus. In Ilmenau the 28-year-old high-frequency physicist is working on the effects of her supervisor’s invention and developing software that will recommend and find music.
Research partnership with conflict region
The Research and Academic Relations Initiative aims not only to promote Germany as a centre of innovation, but also to contribute to the democratic development in conflict regions and countries in transition. Support for higher education structures in and academic exchange with Iraq, for example, constitutes a valuable contribution to the process of normalization in the country. Training young Afghan researchers in economics at the University of Bochum and in good governance as part of a Master’s programme at the Erfurt School of Public Policy represents an important contribution to economic and political reconstruction.
Strengthening international cooperation
Foreign research and education policy has long been an integral part of German foreign policy. Every year the Federal Foreign Office spends more than 250 million euros on science, research and development in Germany and worldwide. Most of this money benefits foreign guest students and visiting researchers in the form of scholarships. The Federal Foreign Office works closely with some 25 partner organizations, including the DAAD, the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation and the German Archaeological Institute, in order to promote international exchange in research and education. What that means in concrete terms is, for example, the creation of new scholarship programmes for highly qualified international graduates as well as students from conflict regions. In partnership with German universities, centres of excellences are being established in Russia, Thailand, Chile and Colombia that enable new levels of interchange. German science and innovation centres are being founded in India, Brazil, Japan, Russia and the USA – as showcases of German research abroad.
Language and integration
Language is an essential element in interchange. In many cases English forms the common denominator, but German is an important language of research, too, and it is therefore also fostered by the Research and Academic Relations Initiative – for example, with the aid of the innovative e-learning courses offered on the Deutsch-Uni Online website. "The Internet enriches the learning of German, especially abroad," says Anastassiya Semyonova. Only the slightest hint of an accent betrays the fact that German is not her mother tongue. It is her calling: the German studies specialist from Kazakhstan teaches as a lecturer at the German as a Foreign Language Unit and works as a research associate in the Intercultural German Studies Centre of Göttingen University. She also believes it is important for foreign academics or students to learn German. Although they can easily get by with English. "If you don’t know the language, you’re cutting yourself off from everyday reality. You miss many subtle distinctions that you can only really appreciate by learning the language." A common language also plays no minor part in building lasting connections between the worlds of knowledge.
Detailed portraits of the researchers: www.auswaertiges-amt.de/awp
