IF THE stereotypes about east Germany were true, then places like Ilmenau would not even exist. The small town is situated in the hills of Thuringia, far away from major business centres. The prevailing mood, therefore, ought to be one of gloom, and yet everywhere you look you find signs of optimism.
The campus of the Technical University has been transformed into a construction site: an enormous lecture theatre is being built here, a new laboratory building for the mechanical engineers over there. The town's showcases include the Centre for Micro- and Nanotechnologies (ZMN), a research establishment where scientists from nine different institutes have been working together since spring 2002.
"If you want to conduct nanoresearch, this is the place where you'll find the interdisciplinary atmosphere and the expensive equipment you need," explains Herwig Dollefeld, who moved from Hamburg University to provincial Thuringia.
The location's appeal to researchers is obviously great. Laboratories are currently being converted to provide room for two new groups working in the fields of biosensor nanosystems and electronics. They form one of six 'centres for innovation competence' that recently won a competition organised by the Federal Research Ministry. Until 2009, each centre will receive up to ten million euros to recruit young researchers from Germany and abroad.
Ilmenau is proof of the hopes that scientific community representatives have of east Germany: "Investment in science is the only way to get the east back on its feet economically," says Karl Max Einhaupl. And, as chairman of the Science Council, he really ought to have the best overview of the German research landscape at the present time. At the end of April, a Fraunhofer Institute devoted to digital media technology was opened in Ilmenau. Numerous companies have also been founded near the Technical University.
SCIENTIFIC QUALITY
Ageing populations, depopulation, wasted subsidies these are the negative catchwords of the renewed debate about the future of east Germany. Yet, an impressive research landscape has arisen largely unnoticed by those who only see decay and money down the drain. Federal and state governments have wasted public funds on recultivating coal tips and building luxurious swimming baths. Where money went into research, however, centres of optimism have been created and not only in the booming region around Dresden.
Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker, president of the German Research Foundation (DFG), often returns from his frequent working visits to the new Lander encouraged by what he has seen: "The east is talked down, but at least in science things are looking up," he says. "When it comes to the quality of research, the east is in no way inferior to the west," insist Winnacker and Einhaupl in unison. Since strong financial investors cannot be lured to the east in large numbers, the representatives of the research world see no other alternative than to begin at the grassroots with good, well-equipped researchers and the small and medium-size businesses of a particular region.
This strategy makes science nothing less than the key to halting the depopulation of east Germany. Research attracts what will be needed most in the coming decades, especially in view of the current demographic transformation: young, qualified, enterprising people. If anything can attract the investors that have so far stayed away, then it is the proximity of that kind of people.
DEPOPULATED REGION
The Berlin Institute for World Population and Global Development has forecast that a depopulated region will be created between Usedom and the Fichtelgebirge by 2020. The towns and villages in and along this corridor will only be able to counter the ageing of their populations if they remain attractive for young, well-educated individuals and their families. Universities and research institutions make an enormous contribution towards that. Ilmenau has 30,000 inhabitants.
Of these, 7,500 students and 1,300 staff are engaged in study and work at the university. The unemployment rate is 19 per cent, but just imagine what the situation would be here without the Technical University.
SIMILAR IMPETUS
Other institutions provide similar impetus: 18 out of the total of 80 institutes of the elite Max Planck Society are in the new Lander. They are now gathering together prominent scientists from all over the world. The Max Planck Institute for Psychological Research in Munich is being merged with the Institute of Cognitive Neuroscience in Leipzig to form the new Institute for Human Cognition and Brain Sciences.
If it were impossible to attract top researchers to the east, this move would have been highly unlikely. With the nearby Leibniz Institute for Neurobiology in Magdeburg, a model for the successful transformation of a former GDR institute, an important centre for brain research is being established in the region.
