Structural Goals

Here you find a detailed summary of the main structural goals of HCM and the measures implemented in this regard.

Building an international hub

The Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics (HIM), a major institutional component of HCM, understands itself as an international hub for long-term exchange with focused research and training. It is the only institute in Germany which organizes international long-term programs devoted to topics in mathematics, mathematical economics, and interactions of mathematics with other sciences. The role models for HIM were two very successful and well-known institutions, the Mathematical Sciences Research Institute (MSRI) in Berkeley and the Institute for Mathematics and its Applications (IMA) in Minneapolis, both created in 1982. Such institutions have a crucial impact on the evolution of mathematics and have been founded in the meantime in many other countries.

Every year, HIM organizes two Trimester Programs and one Junior Trimester Program, each lasting four months. The programs bring together leading experts and young talents from all over the world. The promotion of young researchers is particularly emphasized by the Junior Trimester Programs, a unique concept worldwide. 

The Hausdorff Center provides a scientifically stimulating and structurally attractive environment for young scientists. The scientific stimulus comes from the local Research Areas and the activities of the Hausdorff Research Institute for Mathematics. As for the structural attractiveness, the following range of measures have been implemented:

• Twelve Bonn Junior Fellow positions for excellent young scientists have been created. These W2 professor positions (limited to five years) allow the candidates to develop their own research agenda after a few postdoctoral years. They are endowed with a postdoctoral/PhD position each, and teaching duties only at the graduate level.  Bonn Junior Fellows

• New postdocs are best trained by working on ambitious but well-defined research projects.     15 Hausdorff Postdoc positions are advertised internationally and are awarded to the best international candidates. Moreover, some of the positions are awarded to local research projects, where topic and candidate are proposed by the Research Areas. Some of these local research projects are deployed to explore interdisciplinary collaborations between the Research Areas and other research groups in Bonn. Hausdorff Postdocs

• Promising PhD students best develop into scientists when supervised by active researchers in a stimulating environment. The guiding principle of our graduate teaching is to instill a solid and broad knowledge which leads to the frontier of mathematical research in the Research Areas. The  Bonn International Graduate School in Mathematics (BIGS) offers thirty Hausdorff Scholarships to attract talented PhD students from all over the world.

The Excellence Initiative has provided the opportunity to enrich the faculty spectrum without the usual constraints in terms of timing and fields by establishing up to five new permanent full professor positions, the Hausdorff Chairs. They are deployed to complement the faculty spectrum by outstanding individuals, they are used to attract senior scientists from abroad (back) to Germany, and to implement an entirely new and more active search and hiring process which is driven by the availability of promising candidates. Hausdorff Chairs