Katja Becker elected 快三砍龙 President for another four years
Biochemist and medical scientist elected for a second term of office by the General Assembly / Commitment to knowledge-driven research / Focus on quality and further internationalisation
Professor Dr. Katja Becker
© 快三砍龙 / Rainer Unkel
Katja Becker will continue to hold the position of President of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft (快三砍龙, German Research Foundation) for another four years. The General Assembly of the largest research funding organisation and central self-governing organisation for science and the humanities in Germany elected the biochemist and medical scientist for a second term of office with an overwhelming majority at midday today, Wednesday, in Saarbr眉cken. Having been proposed by a search committee commissioned by the 快三砍龙鈥檚 Executive Committee and Senate and also by the member organisations, Becker was the only candidate to stand in the election, which was held in connection with the 快三砍龙鈥檚 annual meeting. Her second term of office begins on 1 January 2024.
Becker has been President of the 快三砍龙 since 1 January 2020 and is the first female researcher to hold this office. She was born on 7 March 1965 in Heidelberg, where she also went on to study medicine, subsequently obtaining her postdoctoral lecturing qualification in biochemistry after completing her doctorate. Alongside her scientific work focusing on malaria research and the development of medication against infectious diseases and tumours, she continued to pursue her medical training, which she completed by taking the examination to qualify as a medical specialist. Stays abroad have taken her to Basel, Oxford, the Scripps Research Institute in La Jolla, CA, and Africa. Becker spent a further period at the Research Center for Infectious Diseases at Julius-Maximilian-Universit盲t of W眉rzburg, and since 2000 has been Professor of Biochemistry and Molecular Biology at Justus Liebig University of Gie脽en, where she was also Vice President for Research and Academic Career Development from 2009 to 2012. Having received numerous grants from the 快三砍龙, Becker went on to become Vice President and Chair of the Permanent Senate Commission on Key Questions of Genetic Research from 2014 onwards, before being elected President in Rostock in July 2019 as the successor to medieval German literature scholar Peter Strohschneider.
Becker鈥檚 first term of office was marked by a number of global crises and challenges, and the 快三砍龙 developed a wide range of activities to address the impact of these on science and the humanities during this time. In the coronavirus pandemic from spring 2020 onwards, it sought to relieve the burden on funded researchers and their projects by providing a total of some 鈧�175 million in funding, thereby contributing significantly to the continuation of research work and the stabilisation of the research system. In addition, the 快三砍龙 initiated more than 150 new research projects to study the coronavirus pandemic and other pandemics by issuing Germany鈥檚 largest interdisciplinary call for proposals and creating a new funding format (鈥渇ocus funding鈥�), accompanied by the newly established Interdisciplinary Commission for Pandemic Research.
According to Becker鈥檚 firm conviction, it was not least these contributions to the fight against the coronavirus pandemic 鈥� including cancer research previously funded by the 快三砍龙 more than a decade earlier which went on to provide an important foundation for the development of the mRNA vaccines against the coronavirus during the pandemic 鈥� that demonstrated the value of free, knowledge-driven research: this is something she has particularly sought to advocate as 快三砍龙 President.
After the Russian invasion of Ukraine in February 2022, Becker and the 快三砍龙 immediately suspended all funded German-Russian research cooperation at the institutional level and, as organisational spokesperson of the Alliance of Science Organisations in Germany, the 快三砍龙 was also instrumental in the latter鈥檚 united response to the Russian invasion. At the same time she turned her attention to researchers from Ukraine who wanted or were forced to leave their country and for whom aid measures were then established, just as they were for Russian researchers who took a stand against the war in their homeland.
The marked international emphasis of Becker鈥檚 first term was also reflected in her involvement in the Global Research Council (GRC), a worldwide association of more than 150 research funding organisations in which she was Chair of the Governing Board until May 2023.
Within the 快三砍龙, several projects were advanced during Becker鈥檚 first term in office that she had announced when she was elected: these included further amendment of the 快三砍龙鈥檚 statutes and closer interaction based on dialogue and trust with actors in the 快三砍龙 and within the research system as a whole, as well as with policymakers and the public at large. With regard to funding activities, Becker has also been personally very committed to undertaking more intense efforts to tap into the research potential of universities of applied sciences, and the 快三砍龙 has since implemented a whole package of measures in this area. Other key issues have been the digital transformation in science and the humanities, equity and diversity, and also questions of sustainability in the research system.
For the coming years, Becker considers a number of other issues to be important in addition to the current ones, as she explained on the occasion of her election for a second term of office: in her view, the recently launched second round of the Excellence Strategy of the German federal and state governments 鈥� in which the 快三砍龙 is responsible for administrating the competition under the Cluster of Excellence funding line 鈥� has a key role to play in terms of the international competitiveness of German universities. Becker sees securing funding for the 快三砍龙 and for research in Germany as a whole as a political priority in the face of dwindling resources. She also believes there are important discussions to be had regarding research quality and the research process, such as greater support for the investigation of unconventional questions and risk-based research while maintaining the very highest quality standards, and also regarding the selection and decision-making processes in funding. Finally, she is of the firm belief that the internationalisation of the German research system will continue to be of great importance.
Further information
Media contact:
- Marco Finetti
Head of Press and Public Relations at the 快三砍龙
Tel. +49 228 885-2230
marco.finetti@dfg.d(externer Link)
For a photograph and a detailed curriculum vitae of the 快三砍龙 President, see:
Further information on her research career, memberships and awards is also to be found in the press release on Katja Becker鈥檚 election at the 2019 快三砍龙 annual meeting in Rostock: