Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and KIT Freundeskreis und Fördergesellschaft e.V. (KFG) have awarded the 2025 Heinrich Hertz Guest Professorship to Professor Jürgen Mlynek. On this occasion, the physicist and long-serving President of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers is going to give a public lecture entitled “Humboldt ‘RELOADED’: Universität von morgen.” It will take place on Tuesday, October 21, 2025 at 17:30 hrs in the Fritz-Haller lecture room on KIT’s Campus South (building 20.40, Englerstraße 7, 76131 Karlsruhe). Media representatives are invited to attend. Registration is possible until October 20 by email to presse ∂does-not-exist.kit edu. On the same day, Mlynek will engage in a dialogue with KIT students on talent management at German universities.
“It is with great pleasure that we welcome Jürgen Mlynek, who is both an outstanding scientist and organizer of science, to Karlsruhe,” says Professor Jan S. Hesthaven, President of KIT. “With his significant work in fields ranging from atomic optics to quantum information processing and surface physics, he has broadened our knowledge. Through his activities as President of the Helmholtz Association, he has had close ties to KIT and especially to its large-scale research for over a decade. Jürgen Mlynek continues to provide valuable impetus with his commitment to scientific excellence and societal responsibility – be it in the strategic development and international establishment of the Falling Walls Foundation, be it now as Hertz Guest Professor.”
In his keynote speech, Mlynek will discuss how universities can remain relevant and effective in a globalized, digital, and conflict-laden world. As a long-serving university president and science manager, he advocates for linking proven principles of the past with future-oriented approaches. In connection with the Hertz Guest Professorship, he will also hold a student seminar. In an exchange of views, Mlynek will discuss with KIT students about talent management at German universities.
About Jürgen Mlynek
Professor Jürgen Mlynek (74) is an experimental physicist, focusing on quantum optics and atomic physics. After his doctorate at Leibniz University Hannover and a research stay at the IBM research lab in the US, he worked as a professor at the ETH Zurich, the University of Konstanz, and the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin. Besides many other scientific awards, he received the Gottfried Wilhelm Leibniz Prize offered by the German Research Foundation (DFG) in 1992.
Over time, Mlynek assumed central posts in the German scientific system: from 1996 to 2001, he was Vice President of the DFG; from 2000 to 2005, President of the Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin; and from 2005 to 2015, President of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centers. Besides his scientific activities, Mlynek is active in science-related institutions. For example, as founder and president of the foundation council of the “Stiftung Kinder forschen” (Little Scientists Foundation), as chairman of the Falling Walls Foundation, and as chairman of the Board of the Wilhelm and Else Heraeus Foundation.
About the Heinrich Hertz Guest Professorship
With the Heinrich Hertz Guest Professorship, which is awarded annually, KFG and KIT honor prominent figures from academia, industry, government, or the arts for their scientific and societal achievements and contributions. KFG, which nowadays promotes research, teaching, innovation, and academic life at KIT, founded the guest professorship in 1987, the year that marked the 100th anniversary of the experimental proof of electromagnetic waves by physicist Heinrich Hertz at the Technical University of Karlsruhe, one of KIT’s predecessor institutions.
Being “The University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.
Juergen Mlynek