Understanding and shaping the formation of structures in soft matter
DFG Research Training Group 2516 with the participation of TU Darmstadt extended
2024/11/18
The German Research Foundation is funding the Research Training Group ‘Control of the structural formation of soft matter at and by means of interfaces’ (GRK 2516) under the leadership of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) for a further four and a half years. Other members include the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research, the Technical University of Darmstadt, and the University of Stuttgart. Leading researchers of the GRK are also significantly involved in CoM2Life, with which JGU and TU Darmstadt are applying for funding as a Cluster of Excellence.
The training of doctoral students in the Research Training Group ‘Control of Soft Matter Structure Formation at and across Interfaces’ (GRK 2516) is entering the next round: The German Research Foundation (DFG) has approved an extension for a further four and a half years and will provide around 5.2 million euros including programme allowances for the second phase starting in January 2025. The Research Training Group was established in 2020 to offer doctoral students an interdisciplinary education that prepares them for a successful career in academia or industry. The core of the training programme is the consistent integration of experiment and theory through tandem projects in the fields of physics and chemistry. In addition to the Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) as the coordinating university, the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research Mainz (MPI-P), the TU Darmstadt and – new in this second phase – the University of Stuttgart are involved.
From cotton to beer froth, from wall paint to jelly – so-called soft matter is omnipresent in our lives. New developments in medical technology, energy storage and information technology also use soft materials. As different as they are, all materials are characterised by their aggregate state between solid and liquid and by their complex structure. How exactly these structures are formed and what potential the interfaces have is the focus of the scientific work of the GRK 2516.
The universities and the Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research are building on their long tradition of research into soft matter. The cooperation between JGU and TU Darmstadt has recently been extended to include a further project: for the past year, the two universities, in association with the Rhine-Main Universities (RMU), have been offering the international master's programme ‘Soft Matter and Materials’. The Max Planck Institute for Polymer Research is also involved in the programme in Mainz.
Six of the graduate school's leading scientists are also playing a major role in the CoM2Life research network, short for ‘Communicating Biomaterials: Convergence Center for Life-Like Soft Materials and Biological Systems’, with which JGU and TU Darmstadt are applying for funding as a cluster of excellence in the German Excellence Strategy.
JGU/bjb
About the excellence strategy of the federal and state governments
CoM2Life is one of the projects with which TU and its partner universities currently apply for the Cluster of Excellence funding line by German federal and state governments.
TU Darmstadt is represented in the Excellence Strategy competition with a total of three project outlines. In addition to “CoM2Life” on communicating biomaterials, these are “Reasonable Artificial Intelligence” (RAI) on artificial intelligence and “The Adaptive Mind” (TAM) from the field of cognitive sciences.
To further strengthen the international competitiveness of research at German universities, the federal and state governments have established the Excellence Strategy as a funding programme. The key objective of the Excellence Strategy is to strengthen top-level research in areas that are internationally competitive, to institutionally strengthen German universities, and to advance the development of the German higher education system.
To this end, the Excellence Strategy comprises two separate but intertwined funding lines. The “Clusters of Excellence” funding line, coordinated by the German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft – DFG) provides project-based funding for internationally competitive research areas at German universities. The “Universities of Excellence” funding line, coordinated by the German Science and Humanities Council (Wissenschaftsrat – WR), is designed to fund institutional strategies that promise to strengthen universities as a whole and create outstanding framework conditions for excellent research.
