Straight talk with... Martin Stratmann

Abstract

The 83 institutes and research facilities of the Max Planck Society, established in 1948, include some of the world's leading scholars in the life sciences, including 17 Noble Prize winners, and publish 15,000 research papers annually. For the past 18 years, biologists have stood at the helm of the prestigious German organization. But last month, an electrochemist and materials scientist, Martin Stratmann, began a six-year term as president of the Munich-based society.

Stratmann, who is 60, served as the director of the Max Planck Institute for Iron Research in Düsseldorf since 2000, where he helped develop self-healing coatings that can protect steels and other metals from rust. Stratmann spoke with David Levine about his vision for the Max Planck Society and about what the change of guard will mean for biomedical research. The conversation has been edited for clarity.

Main

What does your background in chemistry bring to your new position?

Credit: Axel Griesch for Max Planck Society

Chemistry is a core discipline of science that is at the cross-section of astrophysics, biosciences and energy-based research, among others. Any breakthrough in chemistry has implications for all fields of science. Being a chemist also is useful in strengthening our ties with academia and industry, as the ties between chemists and the chemical industry here in Germany are traditionally stronger than between biologists and industry.

The Max Planck Institute for Iron Research, which you led for more than a decade, receives funding from the German Steel Institute (VDEh) and is one of Germany's biggest public-private partnerships. What are the advantages and disadvantages of working with industry?

Maybe it should initially be noted that Max Planck does not carry out contract research for the German Steel Institute. The research continues to be primarily basic research, which is also application oriented. And this combination has proven to be extraordinarily successful. The ideal industry environment for scientists is one that has the openness of a scientific organization without being an extension of a workbench. The model works. Bell Labs in the United States was a source of both great research and many patents. Unfortunately, industry today is not as willing to support basic research. The main driver is shareholder value. Today's economy forces industry to think in terms of quarterly year results, which are not aligned with the timeline of science.

The Max Planck Society receives €1.6 billion ($2.17 billion) from the German government. In a time of increasing austerity, do you worry about funding in the future?

There is a saying that Germany has no natural resources except our brains. Having a chancellor [Angela Merkel] who was a physicist helps, but funding is always an issue. The Max Planck [Society] was fortunate over the last five years to have 5% growth in our funding each year. We would be happy if this trend was to continue. In the past few years, Germany has enormously profited from increased investments into research. However, all current political signals indicate that growth will be reduced and may only cover the inflation rate. For us, this would mean having to generate something new from what is already available to us.

Can you tell us about your work with the Minerva Foundation, which was founded in the 1960s as a subsidiary of the Max Planck Society to support scientific cooperation between Germany and Israel?

I am very proud of my work as the scientific director of the Minerva Foundation. [The Max Planck Society's] relationship with the Minerva Foundation predates the establishment of diplomatic relations between Israel and Germany. The initial objective was to promote scientific excellence in Israel while cementing scientific exchange between Germany and Israel. The partnership has worked. Today Germany is only second to the United States in exchanges with scientists from Israel. I am also fascinated and impressed with Israeli scientists, whom I feel are among the best in the world. I believe that scientists in Germany have a lot to learn from scientists in Israel including their optimism, their willingness to take chances and their entrepreneurial spirit.

The Max Planck Society took a major step in expanding into the US with the opening of the Max Planck Florida Institute in 2012. Why do this?

It was very important to us to show that our trust-based system, where researchers are guaranteed funding for 20 years, could work in the United States. We feel that our system is a better alternative than proposal-based research. Together with the Scripps Research Institute and the Florida Atlantic University, the Max Planck Florida Institute constitutes a high-performance neuroscience research cluster.

What do you hope for the Max Planck Society?

I am very proud that our model of trust-based grants, which gives researchers stable funding for a long period of time (20–25 years in the case of the Max Planck Society or more), has resulted in so many great scientific discoveries. I expect this to continue, but I also want to see Max Planck become younger and have more females in our leadership, and to help to educate scientists in developing countries. I anticipate great discoveries in the areas of physics, astrophysics and the biomedical sciences with help from aligned fields of humanities and informatics. I also believe the increasing interest in the origins of life will receive great contributions from the fields of geosciences and physics as well as planetary sciences. This is an interesting time in the history of science to be heading Max Planck.