Cool jazz background music, festively dressed people in expectant mood, sparkling wine and finger food: A fitting setting to announce publication of the University of Bremen’s new Yearbook. A large number of guests, friends and sponsors as well as members of the University followed the Rector’s invitation to attend the reception held in the rooms of the Fraunhofer Institute for Manufacturing Technology and Advanced Materials (IFAM). The venue was well-chosen, too. For cooperation is the theme running through the 2015 Yearbook, and the IFAM institute in Wiener Strasse is among the University’s many extra-mural cooperation partners.
In his welcoming address, the Director of IFAM, Professor Bernd Mayer, who hosted the event, connected IFAM’s success with “the progressively closer ties the institution maintains with the University.” The decision taken 20 years ago to move the institute’s location from Lesum to the University campus set the scene for this successful cooperation. Mayer pointed to the fact that IFAM is currently helping 30 bachelor and master students as well as 15 doctoral students from the University to complete their theses. “And the list of IFAM teaching projects is long.”
“Successful Yearbook is second to none”
In his opening address, the Rector of the University of Bremen, Professor Bernd Scholz-Reiter, praised the Yearbook as a great success “…and second to none on the German university landscape”. He thanked the editorial team led by Meike Mossig, and expressed appreciation for the artistic graphical design created by the firm Gruppe für Gestaltung (GfG). Scholz-Reiter stressed the interpersonal aspect of the feature theme. “Newly appointed professors often express their amazement at the atmosphere and degree of cooperation achieved here on the campus. Although it comes naturally to us, it is still very special in national comparison”. Out of a total of 290, every fifth professor of the University holds a leadership position at one of our extra-mural cooperation partners. Scholz-Reiter went on to name some examples of interdisciplinarity, cooperation with the other universities in Bremen, as well as with the business community and the citizens of Bremen. He expressly thanked the friends and sponsors of the University. “In the course of 2015 we gained the support of no less than three new sheltered foundations, more than in any year before”, he said, visibly moved by this expression of overwhelming support.
“An important role to play for Bremen”
“I’m a product of cooperation myself”, said Bremen‘s Airbus CEO, Dr. André Walter, in the speech that followed. The 49-year-old had previously worked at the University’s Institute for Materials Science, where he completed his doctoral thesis before joining Airbus in 2006. The fruitful cooperation Bremen is so well-known for also has a positive effect on the business location. “We can play an important role for Bremen”.
Film a big success
The audience showed their appreciation for the ten-minute film which the Rector introduced as “the dynamic version of the Yearbook”. The evening came to an informal close with lots of small groups in conversation to the tune of sophisticated background music provided by the Jörn Lungwitz Quartette – four musicians who are all students at the Bremen University of Arts. Among other things, the conversation turned to the next Yearbook for 2016, for after the Yearbook comes the Yearbook. “That will make it twenty times we’ll have produced the Year book for the University”, said the CEO of Gruppe für Gestaltung, Hanke Homburg. “Quite a challenge.”