Foresight

5 September 1995 will probably go down as an important date in the history of the universities of Oldenburg and Bremen. On this day, the state government in Hanover finally agreed to the establishment of a joint science college in Delmenhorst. Quite a few people had written off the project, which was launched three years ago by the governments of both states, several times - most recently when it was put on the list of projects to be reviewed in August in order to plug the large financial holes in the Lower Saxony budget. What could be more obvious than to liquidate a project that many people in the state do not even want? Some see the science centre merely as an opportunity to raise the profile of the two young universities, while others consider it an unbearable luxury in the university landscape in view of the high student numbers and simultaneous job cuts.

And so it seems. At the Hanseatic Science Centre, a small number of top scientists from Oldenburg and Bremen will work for a year on a project-oriented basis in interdisciplinary dialogue with colleagues from all over the world - unencumbered by the tasks of everyday life, which can also be grey at universities, and committed only to their science. Who would not call this a great privilege - especially in times of tight budgets?

However, it speaks for the foresight of the governments of Bremen and Lower Saxony that they did not allow themselves to be swayed by short-sighted arguments. Instead, they ultimately followed a study by both universities, which convincingly demonstrated that institutions such as the Hanseatic Science Centre would not only help to better develop scientific potential, but also act as an important source of impetus to stimulate quality research and teaching at the universities.

There are already three institutions of this kind in Germany: the Berlin Wissenschaftskolleg, the Essen Institute for Advanced Study in the Humanities and the Bielefeld Centre for Interdisciplinary Research. The great role model for all of them is the Institute for Advanced Study in Princeton (USA), where many great scientists such as Albert Einstein and Robert Oppenheimer spent important years of their careers. An invitation from the Institute is still the dream of many researchers. An Oldenburg scientist, the art historian Peter Springer, is now also part of this select circle. He has spent the past twelve months in Princeton.

Incidentally, the Institute was founded 65 years ago - in 1930, the year of the global economic crisis - when good advice was at a premium and much was expected of science. Today's society is also looking for new ways to overcome its deep crisis and is more dependent on science than ever before.

Yours

Gerhard Harms