Max Planck Society
Together with the German Max Planck Society, the Danish National Research Foundation in 2007 established the Center for Geomicrobiology, an international research center at Aarhus University. Co-financing a European center outside Germany is a new initiative for the Max Planck Society, which indicates the high priority the organization places on the Center for Geomicrobiology as well as on future collaboration with basic research efforts in Denmark.
The center was founded to create a new research group, rather than extending an existing group, and it is aimed at initiating a new research area between biology and geology at the Faculty of Natural Sciences. The center – and its close ties with Bremen – greatly enhances the geomicrobiological research activities at Aarhus University.
Center for Geomicrobiology
The Center for Geomicrobiology will receive app. 22 mil. DKK over a five-year period from the DNRF. The German Max Planck Society will contribute a similar amount. Including funding from Aarhus University, total funding amounts to 48 mil. DKK.
Professor Bo Barker Jørgensen
The center is headed by the internationally renowned director of the Max Planck Institute for Marine Microbiology in Bremen, Professor Bo Barker Jørgensen. He will continue to head the institute in Bremen while leading the Center for Geomicrobiology.
About the Max Planck Society
The Max Planck Society is an independent, non-profit, high-quality research organization founded in 1948. The organization is engaged in promoting basic research in its institutions within new and innovative areas that German universities are unable to accommodate.
The Max Planck Society is known for its excellent and cutting-edge research that attracts major scientific talents. Such research is made possible through the organization’s effective and profitable institute structure, which is continually modified to accommodate the current range of research. The organization lives by a collection of principles stating that research determines institute structure; therefore, a prominent researcher can greatly influence which areas an institute chooses to invest in.