In keeping with the title of Herbert Grönemeyer’s song “Alles bleibt anders” [Everything will remain different], the personnel change in the University management is characterized by continuity in content. With 21 votes in favor and one abstention, the Academic Senate followed a recommendation put forward by the University’s Rector, Bernd Scholz-Reiter, and elected Professor Breiter as successor to the post of Vice Rector for Research and Young Academics. His predecessor, Professor Kurosch Rezwan, has held the post for two and a half years. The new Vice Rector’s appointment will start on November 1, 2015 and end on March 31, 2018.
“I’m very pleased that my colleague Andreas Breiter has agreed to be our new Vice Rector and continue his predecessor’s good work with his own special ideas. Continuity of content in the management of our University is particularly important in view of the challenges we will face over the next few years, especially with regard to prolongation of the Excellence Initiative. I believe Andreas Breiter is just the right person to succeed Kurosch Rezwan, whom I would like to thank for his important contribution in service of our University over the past two and a half years”, said University Rector Bernd Scholz-Reiter during a break of the AS session.
Professor Breiter perceives one of his main tasks in further developing the University’s overall research strategy in close cooperation with people across all of the University’s faculties. In front of a backdrop of scarce resources and the pending competitive call within the context of the Excellence Initiative, he intends to put the task of sharpening the University’s profile right at the top of his list of things to do. Here, he sees a top priority in fostering the good cooperation among the faculties and with the non-university research institutions in the State of Bremen. In this context, Andreas Breiter says it is important to support both collaborative projects as well as individual research, and to build interdisciplinary bridges between the two.
A labor of love: The promotion of young academics
In keeping with his predecessor, Andreas Breiter’s commitment to the advancement of young academics is more a labor of love than merely a duty that comes with office. In the area of PhD procedures, Breiter says he will place a strong focus on the quality of supervision and ensuring that there is a “correct fit” in accordant processes. “In particular”, Breiter says, “I strongly believe that doctoral candidates and postdocs should be qualified beyond the close confines of their academic disciplines.”
The new Vice Rector sees the Central Research Development Program as one of the University’s most crucial instruments to ensure that its research activities remain competitive in the years to come. Here, Breiter perceives promising opportunities for introducing structural support to intensify research cooperation between the natural sciences and the engineering sciences, on the one hand, and the humanities and social sciences, on the other. Here, too, he believes the concept for “PhDs in the Humanities” promoted by his predecessor Kurosch Rezwan constitutes an excellent basis for more interdisciplinary networking.
Background
Andreas Breiter studied Computer Sciences, Sociology, and Political Science at the universities of Frankfurt (Main) and Southampton (England). Following a two-year period as research assistant at the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems Engineering and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe, in 1997 he accepted a position as a research associate at the University of Bremen, where – with interruptions for lengthy research stays abroad – he has remained since then. In 2004 he was appointed Junior Professor for “Information and Knowledge Management in Education” in the field of applied informatics within Faculty of Mathematics / Computer Sciences. He was subsequently granted a full professorship in 2008. Beside his University teaching and research activities, since 2011 he is Scientific Director of the Institut für Informationsmanagement Bremen GmbH (ifib), an affiliated institute of the University financed by the State of Bremen.
For further information, please contact:
University of Bremen
Rector
Prof.Dr.-Ing. Bernd Scholz-Reiter
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