Education, research and development, responsibility for future generations, and the looming threat to our environment and climate – these are the topics that the newly founded Kellner and Stoll – Foundation for Climate and the Environment will be focusing on. The founders, Dr. Rita Kellner-Stoll and Reiner Stoll, signed the statutes and deed of trust with Gerd-Rüdiger Kück, the University’s Director of Finance and Administration, who is also Chairman of the Board of Trustees, on Wednesday 22nd February 2012.

The founder couple strongly believes:  “We will only be able to cope with the challenges of the future by accepting responsibility for the present”. The idea to set up their own foundation was born while they were in the midst of regulating affairs surrounding their personal estate and matters of inheritance. The couple says that the “charm” of setting up a foundation is that you are able to steer and influence the direction the foundation takes during your own lifetime”.

This attractive possibility has been opened up by the new Foundation of the University of Bremen which, by taking over the affairs of smaller science funding foundations, adds to their effect through reducing the administrative overhead. An additional motivation for the founders is that they wish to pay back something to state institutions – and thus to society – for the opportunities offered to them. Although they both studied in Göttingen, they were born in Bremen; so the University of Bremen seemed a natural choice. Prof. Wilfried Müller, Rector of the University and himself also a member of the Board of Trustees of the new foundation trust, welcomes the founding couple‘s generous commitment: “Dr. Kellner-Stoll and her husband Reiner Stoll are supporting topics which are very much in line with the policy of the University of Bremen. Together we will be better equipped to address the pressing issues of our time – in the interest of coming generations”.

Following their retirement, the founders now intend to concentrate their efforts on supporting the foundation, thereby actively contributing towards the future development of Bremen. “We hope that we will not remain alone in our efforts and that we will find like-minded supporters as project partners”.

Further information can be obtained from: UniTransfer, Dr. Christina Jung, e-mail: christina.jungprotect me ?!vw.uni-bremenprotect me ?!.de