Large research centers are to be set up from 2026

Created: 09/30/2022, 14:01

Peter H. Seeberger from the Max Planck Institute of Colloids and Interfaces.

© Robert Michael/dpa

The two large research centers in Lusatia and in the central German area are to be built after a three-year project phase.

Construction could start in 2026, as the founding directors of the German Center for Astrophysics (DZA), Günther Hasinger, and the Center for the Transformation of Chemistry (CTC), Peter H. Seeberger, said on Friday in Dresden.

Dresden - The offices should now be set up quickly, research is already being carried out.

The DZA wants to create five professorships for this together with the TU Dresden.

A campus is being built for the Center for Astrophysics in the center of Görlitz, where a historic hospital will be renovated and new buildings will be added.

A seismic underground laboratory with ideal properties in the Lusatian granite of the Sorbian triangle of Bautzen, Kamenz and Hoyerswerda is also planned.

An old sugar cane factory in Delitzsch is to become the campus for the CTC, and the chemical sites in Leuna, Bitterfeld and Zeitz (Saxony-Anhalt) are also to be included.

Hasinger expects around 1,000 to 1,200 jobs directly at the Center for Astrophysics as well as thousands more in the surrounding area, also through settlements and spin-offs.

According to Seeberger, 1000 jobs will be created at the CTC - 300 of them in Saxony-Anhalt - and another 300 through third-party funding in the chemical industry.

Over a period of 15 years, more than 10,000 jobs could be created in dozens of companies, Seeberger said.

Both scientists pointed out that there is already a network of universities, research facilities and institutes.

Excellent scientists from abroad should also be won for the two large research centers, and training and further education programs as well as the retraining of today's "coal miners" are also planned.

dpa