Max Planck plans double blow to chemistry

摘要

Two highly rated chemistry groups look set to become the first casualties of a budget freeze at Germany's Max Planck Society. Nature has learned that plans to close the cosmochemistry and geochemistry departments at the Max Planck Institute for Chemistry in Mainz are expected to be approved by the society's ruling body in June―a move that some say would end Germany's involvement in top-quality science in these fields. Up to 20 Max Planck research units are likely to shut down over the next few years. Peter Gruss, the society's president, said last November that such closures are unavoidable following the government's decision to freeze the society's budget at EUD 1.2 billion (US$1.3 billion) this year (see Nature.420,452; 2002). The departments are being dismantled partly because their present scientific directors are due to retire. Geochemist Albrecht Hofmann will step down in 2005 and Guen-ther Lugmair, head of cosmochemistry, will follow suit in 2007. The Max Planck Society traditionally builds departments around individual researchers, and always evaluates the future of a unit when its head leaves.