Professor Kurt Mehlhorn appointed member of the Scientific Council of the ERC

Professor Kurt Mehlhorn, Founding Director of the Max Planck Institute for Informatics and Professor of Algorithms and Complexity at Saarland University, will be a member of the Scientific Council of the ERC (European Research Council) for the next four years. This was announced by the ERC in a press release. The Scientific Council consists of 22 renowned scientists and is the Board of the ERC. It organizes the financial support of fundamental research within the European Union.

"I see it as a great honor to be appointed" commented Professor Kurt Mehlhorn on the decision of the ERC to place him on their Scientific Council, which has existed since 2006. Of the 22 scientists Professor Kurt Mehlhorn is one of three German researchers. He will work with Professor Matthias Kleiner, President of the Leibniz Association, and Professor Michael Kramer, Director at the Max Planck Institute for Radio Astronomy. People who formerly worked on the Scientific Council include the German Nobel laureate Christiane Nuesslein-Volhard and Professor Hans-Joachim Freund, Director of the Scientific Council at the Fritz Haber Institute of the Max Planck Society. 

Mehlhorn praises the strategic orientation of the ERC: "In previous years, mostly applied sciences were funded by the EU, but now also basic research is supported by the ERC, huge progress. Only basic research produces results that lead to radically new ideas. Take the Internet or satellite navigation."

Background to Professor Mehlhorn

Kurt Mehlhorn heads the department "Algorithms and Complexity" at the Max Planck Institute for Informatics in Saarbrücken. He is author or co-author of approx. 300 research papers and has published six books. 80 of his former students now hold professorships. Mehlhorn has been awarded a number of prestigious research prizes. These include the Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation in 1986 and the Konrad Zuse Medal in 1995. He was Vice President of the Max Planck Society from 2002 to 2008. In 2014, he celebrated his 30th anniversary as a university teacher. He is a member of the Leopoldina, the National Academy of Sciences, of acatech, the National Academy of Science and Engineering, the Academia Europaea, and the Indian National Academy of Engineering. Last year, members of the US National Academy of Science appointed him as a "Foreign Associate" in their ranks. He is the second European computer scientist to be honored this way. In 1995 he co-founded the Algorithmic Solution Software GmbH. 

Further Informationenhttps://erc.europa.eu/about-erc/organisation-and-working-groups/scientific-council

 

contact:

Professor Kurt Mehlhorn
Max-Planck-Institut für Informatik
Saarland Informatics Campus (SIC)
Telefon: +49 681 9325 1000
E-Mail: mehlhorn(at)mpi-inf.mpg.de