7 million euros for research

Physicist Prof. Michael Fleischhauer (TU Kaiserslautern)

Biologist Prof. Ekkehard Neuhaus (TU Kaiserslautern)

The Technical University of Kaiserslautern will conduct top-level research for four more years within the framework of the Transregio programs "The Green Hub" and "OSCAR". At the end of May, the approval committee of the German Research Foundation (DFG) announced that both special research areas will be extended. In total, the DFG is providing research funding amounting to seven million euros for TU Kaiserslautern.

Furthermore, the coordination and thus the public spokesperson role within OSCAR will be transferred to Kaiserslautern. "These are significant successes for research in the field of plant sciences and quantum physics at TU Kaiserslautern," explain the site spokesperson of Green Hub, biologist Prof. Ekkehard Neuhaus, and the new spokesperson of OSCAR, physicist Prof. Michael Fleischhauer.

Special research areas are the "flagship" of research funding by the DFG and are established or extended according to the highest quality standards. Therefore, Professor Dr. Arnd Poetzsch-Heffter, acting Vice President for Research and designated President of TU Kaiserslautern, is very pleased: "The extension of two special research areas at TUK is a convincing proof of the continuity of excellent research at our university. We look forward to continuing collaboration with the excellent universities in Berlin, Bonn, and Munich in these two programs. I sincerely congratulate the colleagues involved in Kaiserslautern on this success, which is the result of years of hard work."

The Transregio special research area "The Green Hub" investigates how plants manage to adapt optimally to rapidly changing environmental conditions, such as temperature changes and variations in light intensity. Green Hub is a collaboration of six plant scientists from Kaiserslautern (Dr. Möhmann, Prof. Mühlhaus, Prof. Schroda, Dr. Trentmann, Prof. Willmund, and Prof. Neuhaus), with colleagues from Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich, Humboldt University Berlin, and the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Plant Physiology in Potsdam. The overarching goal of the researchers is to decipher the adaptation strategies of plants at the molecular level. "We particularly aim to understand how plants tolerate extreme conditions and how we can, based on this knowledge, more targetedly improve crop plants," says Prof. Neuhaus.

Especially pleasing for TUK: In the upcoming funding phase, more research funds will flow to Kaiserslautern, as the number of subprojects on site has increased from four to six. This significantly underscores the quality of plant research, adds Prof. Neuhaus.

The Transregio special research area "OSCAR" (Open System Control of Atomic and Photonic Matter) deals with the physics of open quantum systems. The researchers challenge the widespread notion that quantum effects are only significant for physical systems when they are almost perfectly isolated from their environment. By utilizing coupling to tailored reservoirs, the effects of generic uncontrolled environments are to be compensated, and new elements for controlling single- and many-particle quantum systems are to be developed. OSCAR is a consortium of nine experimental and theoretical quantum physicists from Kaiserslautern (Prof. Anglin, Prof. Eggert, Prof. v. Freymann, Dr. Niederprüm, Prof. Ott, Dr. Pelster, Dr. Schneider, Prof. Widera, and Prof. Fleischhauer) with nine colleagues from the University of Bonn, working on theoretical and experimental aspects of open quantum systems. "The goal of our research is to provide tailored open quantum systems as a new toolbox for quantum technology," summarizes Prof. Fleischhauer.

The fact that the coordination of OSCAR is moving from Bonn to Kaiserslautern reflects the excellent collaboration between the partner institutions, which is also expressed in two new cross-site projects. It also speaks to the strength of quantum physics in Kaiserslautern that three new subproject leaders are from Kaiserslautern.

The foundation for the more than ten-year ongoing expansion of excellent research at TU Kaiserslautern is the research initiative of the state of Rhineland-Palatinate, which supports the university in the current funding phase until 2023 with an additional 5.4 million euros annually in research funds. The two extended special research areas are located within the funded profile areas BioComp (Green Hub) and OPTIMAS (OSCAR).

Questions answered by:
Dr. Isabel Sattler
Tel.: 0631 205 2273
Email: isabel.sattler@verw.uni-kl.de