Please activate JavaScript!
Please install Adobe Flash Player, click here for download
ePaper created 2015-05-12, 15:30:36 | version 1.38.0
LOOKING FORWARD The Three-Country Professor The characteristics of a future researcher on the European Campus It is the year 2030. She holds a chair on the European Campus. Her office is part of the large-scale research infra- structure the alliance maintains. A trinational diploma hangs framed on her wall. She has studied in three countries and speaks fluent German and French, as well as a bit of Swiss German – not to mention English, the language of science. When writing her final thesis in Freiburg, she profited from the excellent infrastructure of the Confederation of Universities on the Upper Rhine (Eucor) and from joint supervision by partner working groups in Basel and Karlsruhe. The photos on her pinboard are also from her time as a student: They were taken at the Basel carnival and show her with the boyfriend who would later become her husband. They met at one of the Eucor summer universities. That’s also where she found out about the lab in Stras- bourg where she began work on her dissertation. He remained in Basel initially – thanks to the TriRegio public transportation pass, not a problem. Connected in the “Three-Country Corner” The research training groups at the EUCOR universities enabled her to meet other trinational researchers quickly and make contacts far beyond the “three-country corner.” After a stint in Mulhouse, she worked successfully as a junior researcher in the USA: at a university on the East Coast as well as one in San Francisco. But the appeal of the European Campus lured her back to the Upper Rhine, and she accepted a joint chair at one of the EUCOR universities. Today she supervises students and doctoral candidates in trinational graduate schools and degree programs at the large-scale research institution. On her desk lies a letter of acceptance she has just received, next to it a champagne glass: Yesterday she again celebrated a real bonanza in research funding with her team. The international renown of the European Campus gives her a competitive edge when applying for third-party funding from the European Union, as well as from French, Swiss, and German funding organizations. The group photo to the left of her pinboard shows her research group at the conference the team recently organized: an international symposium at which researchers from the Upper Rhine region initiated new partner- ships and made friends with col- leagues from around the world. Still a Freiburger This weekend she plans to go mountain climbing on the limestone cliffs of the Jura Moun- tains or the gneiss and granite crags of the Vosges and the Black Forest. She also participates in the EUCOR cycling tour every year: The route passes through all five member universities of the confederation. For the time being she is living in her hometown Freiburg with her husband. She is a European researcher – but remains a Freiburger. Mathilde Bessert-Nettelbeck Top-notch research on the Upper Rhine: The researcher heads a lab on the European Campus. Illustration: Svenja Kirsch 77