FOREWORD

The current discussion about new contents and pathways of university research was initiated in 2002 as a result of the definition of the Universität Leipzig mission statement "A Tradition of Crossing Boundaries" and the following development of specific focus areas for research. After the election of the new rectorate in November 2003, this process was continued systematically. It was driven in particular by the crucial impulses given in the Federal-Länder-Initiative "Top-Class Universities for Germany - Initiative for Excellence Competition". Aware of our particular advantage - next to the Universität, the city of Leipzig is host to 18 other research institutions (among them three Max-Planck-Institutes), five other universities, and the Centre for Environmental Research - the Universität Leipzig organised the first "Leipzig Research Summit" on February 26, 2004. At this conference, areas of particular competency were identified. Teams directed by members of the research commission began not only to analyse the status quo of research activities at the university, but also to outline new interdisciplinary approaches and develop new research projects. The self-analysis itself has been of incomparable worth. In a first presentation in December 2004, five especially promising clusters emerged:

• From Micro- to Nanostructures: Applications in Chemistry and Physics
• Mathematics and the Exact Natural Sciences
• Molecular and Cellular Communication, Growth and Differentiation: Biomedicine, Biotechnology and Bioinformatics
• From Molecule to Behaviour
• New Spaces of Social and Cultural Processes

It is important to emphasize that the entire scope of academic excellence at the Universität Leipzig and in the city of Leipzig cannot be covered in those five clusters, but that they are embedded in a diversity of smaller, internationally renowned disciplines, especially in the humanities and the social sciences.

The combination of several focus areas for research led to the development of the following, interdisciplinary activities in 2004:

Following the Federal Ministry of Education and Research's call for "Centres for Innovation Competence" in 2003, the interdisciplinary study group "Computer-assisted Image-guided Surgical Navigation and Medical Robotics" at the Faculty of Medicine, together with the Departments of Otorhinolaryngology and Plastic Surgery, Cardiac Surgery, and Neurosurgery, developed a concept for an Innovation Centre for Computer-Assisted Surgery (ICCAS) in Leipzig. The concept was presented successfully in early 2004 and the Leipzig centre will be funded with an amount of almost EUR 3 million over the next five years. Spanning different faculties, it will engage in teaching and research in the field of computer- and robot-assisted surgery. Already in place are a C3-"Innovation" professorship and two junior research groups.

The National Research Foundation (DFG) approved a joint application by the Universität Leipzig and the Delft University of Technology/Netherlands for an International Graduate Research Group "Diffusion in Porous Materials", making EUR 1.08 million available in the first phase of funding (2004 - 2008). The research group will develop into an international consortium of renowned scientists and opens excellent perspectives for research and teaching as well as raising high expectations for outstanding progress in the theory and practice of this field.

The signing of a contract between the Universität Leipzig and the European Commission on June 17, 2004 marked the positive conclusion of a three-step application and review process for the Network of Excellence "Self-Assembled Semiconductor Nanostructures for New Devices in Photonics and Electronics (SANDiE)". 27 partners from 11 countries (universities, research institutions, and companies) participate in this project, which is being coordinated by the Universität Leipzig and will be funded in the next four years in the amount of over EUR 9 million.

With the approval of its third International PhD-programme "From Signal Processing to Behaviour" funded by the DAAD/DFG "PhD-programmes at German Universities PHD"-initiative, the Universität Leipzig advances to a prominent place in Germany. This programme brings together two graduate research groups, "Interdisciplinary Approaches in Cellular Neurosciences" and "Functions of Attention in Cognitive Processes", as well as the Max-Planck-Research-School "Human Origins". It was judged by the reviewers as "a convincing approach to bring together different perspectives (from the natural and social sciences and the humanities) on neurocognition, and thus an important step toward the urgently needed interdisciplinary study of neurocognitive questions". By now, five faculties of the Universität Leipzig - Faculty of Biosciences, Pharmacy and Psychology, Faculty of Medicine, Faculty of Social Science and Philosophy, Faculty of Sport Science, and Faculty of History, Art and Oriental Studies - as well as two Leipzig Max-Planck-Institutes (Human Cognitive and Brain Sciences and Evolutionary Anthropology) - are involved in the project, which aims to host about 100 doctoral students, 60 of them from outside of Germany.

This incomplete list of successes in research activities, which develop continuously over many years and are often not very spectacular in the beginning, is reflected in the very positive development of external funding.

With EUR 54.1 million in external funding (and a roughly equal number of funded projects), the university almost reached last year's result. The university regards the fact that the share of projects refereed by the European Union, the Federal Government, and the National Research Foundation (DFG), is again high at 58% of the total external funding as proof of our academic excellence in selected fields. The share of funds coming from the DFG has continually risen in the past years and is now at 25%. The DFG thus remains the most important source of external funding for the university.

External funding allows the university to hire additional personnel for specific research projects. With 972 contracts in 2004, the Universität Leipzig remained only slightly under its best result of 996 contracts in the previous year.

The Universität Leipzig is well prepared for the Initiative for Excellence by the Federal Government and the Länder. In addition, present efforts to strengthen the research centres and to create attractive PhD-programmes increase the national and international renown of the Universität Leipzig into its anniversary year 2009 and well beyond.