Oldenburg. From junior research programme to cutting-edge research: the Department of Medical Physics at the University of Oldenburg celebrated its 25th anniversary today with a ceremony and a symposium. Guests from science and politics also celebrated the 60th birthday of Oldenburg physicist and physician Prof Dr Dr Birger Kollmeier. He and his team laid the foundations for hearing research in Oldenburg in April 1993 with his former Fiebiger professorship - a funding programme for young scientists.

"25 years of medical physics: a success story that is also inextricably linked to the success story of the university as a whole. Oldenburg hearing research stands for thematic diversity and is highly recognised scientifically. It has national and international appeal," said Jörg Stahlmann, Vice President for Administration and Finance at the University of Oldenburg at the ceremony.

The work of Oldenburg Medical Physics was also honoured by the Mayor of the City of Oldenburg, Petra Averbeck, and Prof. Dr Thomas Lenarz, Clinic Director of the Ear, Nose and Throat Clinic at Hannover Medical School (MHH) and deputy spokesperson for the Hearing4all cluster of excellence. The keynote speech was given by Stephan Albani, Member of the Bundestag. At the subsequent symposium, international scientists presented the latest findings in various fields of hearing research.

When it was launched in 1993, the Department of Medical Physics, which was the first to combine the natural sciences with medicine, consisted of Kollmeier and his 16 colleagues. Participation in a newly established Research Training Group on psychoacoustics, funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and headed by Prof. Dr Volker Mellert and Prof. Dr August Schick, gave the group a good start. The department, which has been part of the newly founded School V - School of Medicine and Health Sciences since 2012, now has almost 70 scientists conducting research in five different working groups. They are dedicated to the fundamentals of hearing and speech as well as the processes of processing acoustic signals in the human brain. The focus is on psychoacoustics, neurosensory technology, speech perception, signal processing in digital hearing aids and clinical hearing diagnostics. The "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence is anchored in the department, as are the Collaborative Research Centre "Hearing Acoustics" recently approved by the DFG and the DFG research group "Individualised Hearing Acoustics" launched in 2012.

Milestones of the past 25 years include participation in the Collaborative Research Centres "Neurocognition" (1996-2006) and "Active Hearing" (2005-2017) as well as the establishment of the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology and the international Research Training Group "Neurosensory Science" (2002-2009). In 1996, the University and the Protestant Hospital founded Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbH, an Institute affiliated with the University. This was followed in 1999 by the establishment of the HörTech Center of Competence gGmbH, which links research, development and industry. The Haus des Hörens, with its acoustic laboratories, has offered ideal research and working conditions since 2002. More than 60 scientists have completed their doctorates in medical physics since 1993. In addition, the degree programmes "Hearing Technology and Audiology" and - last year - "Physics, Technology, Medicine" were established.

There is no doubt that this success story is closely linked to Birger Kollmeier, emphasised Stahlmann. "People like Professor Kollmeier are invaluable to science and a stroke of luck for a university."

Kollmeier is spokesperson for the "Hearing4all" cluster of excellence and Director of the University's Department of Medical Physics and Acoustics. He is also Scientific Director of HörTech, Hörzentrum Oldenburg GmbH and the Fraunhofer Project Group for Hearing, Speech and Audio Technology. Kollmeier has received numerous prestigious awards for his work, including the Karl Küpfmüller Ring of the Technical University of Darmstadt (2009), the Lower Saxony Science Prize (2011), the International Award of the American Academy of Audiology (2012) and - together with Oldenburg psychoacoustician Prof Dr Volker Hohmann and Dr Torsten Niederdränk (Siemens AG) - the German Future Prize (Federal President's Prize for Technology and Innovation, 2012). In September 2017, he received the Glocker Medal, the highest honour of the German Society for Medical Physics (DGMP). He is a member of the board of the European Federation of Audiological Societies (EFAS) as "Incoming President".