23/11/2021 | Martina Brockmeier will become the new President of the Leibniz Association. The Leibniz Association’s General Assembly elected the professor from the University of Hohenheim by an overwhelming majority to succeed Matthias Kleiner, who did not stand for another term after eight years at the helm of the research organisation. Martina Brockmeier will take office on 1 July 2022. The term of office for the Leibniz Presidency is four years.
"I am very pleased to have been elected President of the Leibniz Association. I would like to express my sincere thanks for the confidence placed in me," said Martina Brockmeier after the General Assembly. "I am excited by the great diversity of disciplines and the deeply rooted interdisciplinarity of the Leibniz Association. It offers excellent conditions for meeting the major social, economic and ecological challenges of our time. Supporting the Leibniz Association in applying its scientific findings for the benefit of society is one of the most interesting tasks in the German science system, and one that I take great pleasure in accepting."
Acting Leibniz President Matthias Kleiner said, "I am very pleased about the choice of Martina Brockmeier as the future Leibniz President.She knows the potential of the Association and its research and will further strengthen it for upcoming challenges."
Martina Brockmeier was nominated for the post in April 2021 by the Leibniz Association's Presidium on the recommendation of a distinguished search committee.
From 2017 to 2020, Martina Brockmeier was Chair of the Science Council, the science policy advisory body of the Federal Government and the Länder on the content-related and structural development of science, research and universities, of which she had been a member since 2014. As Chair of the Science Council, Martina Brockmeier was a member of the Leibniz Senate by virtue of her office and previously a member of the Senate Committee on Evaluation of the Leibniz Association from 2001 to 2009 as well as a member of the DFG Review Board. She is currently also a member of the Senate Committee on Strategic Projects of the Leibniz Association, the National Academy of Science and Engineering (Acatech), the Academic Advisory Council of Heidelberg University and the GTAP Advisory Board of Purdue University (USA). She has been Professor of International Agricultural Trade and World Food Economics at the University of Hohenheim since 2009.
New Vice President
The new Vice President of the Leibniz Association is agricultural engineer Barbara Sturm. The scientific director of the Leibniz Institute for Agricultural Engineering and Bioeconomy (ATB) in Potsdam and Professor of Agricultural Engineering in Bioeconomic Systems at Humboldt University in Berlin was elected by the General Assembly for a two-year term. Barbara Sturm succeeds Kathrin Böhning-Gaese from the Senckenberg Gesellschaft für Naturforschung, who is stepping down from the Leibniz Association's Executive Board after two terms.
Barbara Sturm is an engineer trained in process and environmental engineering. With a doctorate and post-doctorate in agricultural engineering, she has been working for more than 15 years on issues of sustainability, food security as well as efficient resource use and regenerative energy provision in industrialised, emerging and developing countries. Before taking over as head of the ATB in the Leibniz Association in 2020, Barbara Sturm was head of the research group “Process and Systems Engineering in Agriculture” at the University of Kassel. Since November 2021, Barbara Sturm has been a member of the Board of the German Agricultural Research Alliance (DAFA).
Further information on Barbara Sturm can be found on the ATB website at: www.atb-potsdam.de/de/ueber-uns/team/mitarbeiter/person/barbara-sturm
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