Science requires good management: Dr. Christoph Krukenkamp is the new administrative managing director at the DBFZ
As of 1 June 2022, Dr. Christoph Krukenkamp is the new administrative managing director of the DBFZ in Leipzig. He succeeds Daniel Mayer, who moved to the Agency for Innovation in Cybersecurity GmbH in Halle as administrative managing director in September 2021. Together with the scientific managing director Prof. Michael Nelles, Dr. Christoph Krukenkamp will lead the business of the DBFZ as a dual leadership.
Dr. Christoph Krukenkamp is a science manager with around 15 years of management and committee experience at various universities and research institutions. Most recently, Dr. Krukenkamp worked for 10 years at the Max Planck Institute for Molecular Genetics in Berlin as head of administration. Prior to that, he held various management positions, including at the medical faculty of the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg, the Charité Berlin and the University Medical Centre Hamburg-Eppendorf. The main focus of his work to date has been science administration, particularly mediating between administration and science, budgeting and controlling for science institutions and medical faculties, contract management and knowledge and technology transfer.
"I am looking forward to the tasks at the DBFZ, which, according to my impression of the first few days, can build on an excellent status. I see my role as a natural scientist and science manager on the one hand in communicating administrative necessities to the scientists and on the other hand in communicating the necessary freedoms of science to the administration," says Dr. Krukenkamp. The scientific managing director of the DBFZ, Prof. Dr. Michael Nelles, adds: "I expressly welcome the fact that the BMEL, in cooperation with the other ministries represented on the Supervisory Board (BMBF, BMWK, BMUV, BMDV and SMEKUL), has succeeded in making this very good new appointment to the administrative management".
The DBFZ is a research institution founded in 2008 and owned by the Federal Republic of Germany. The sole shareholder is the Federal Ministry of Food and Agriculture. In recent years, a large number of infrastructural measures have been implemented at the DBFZ. In addition to the construction of a day-care centre and extensive renovation measures, these include in particular the construction of a new technical centre for applied biomass research as well as a five-storey office building with an adjoining event hall costing around 60 million euros in total.
Smart Bioenergy – innovations for a sustainable future
The DBFZ works as a central and independent thinker in the field of energy and material use of biomass on the question of how the limited available biomass resources can contribute to the existing and future energy system with sustainability and high efficiency. As part of the research the DBFZ identifies, develops, accompanies, evaluates and demonstrates the most promising fields of application for bioenergy and the especially positively outstanding examples together with partners from research, industry and public. With the scientific work of the DBFZ, the knowledge of the possibilities and limitations of energy and integrated material use of renewable raw materials in a biobased economy as a whole should be expanded and the outstanding position of the industrial location Germany in this sector permanently secured – www.dbfz.de/en.