Ombudspersons for good scientific practise appointed
The new ombudspersons at HZB have been appointed. from right to left, top: Manfred Weiss, Annette Pietzsch, bottom: Sebastian Fiechter and Michael Tovar. They will be happy to advise you on all questions regarding good scientific practice and the supervision of young researchers. Just get in touch with them!
Manfred Weiss, Sebastian Fiechter, Annette Pietzsch and Michael Tovar have been available to you as ombudspersons since 1 January 2023. They will be happy to advise you on all questions regarding good scientific practice at the HZB.
For Manfred Weiss and Sebastian Fiechter, this is their second term as ombudspersons. Annette Pietzsch and Michael Tovar have taken on the role of ombudsperson for the first time. All four have many years of experience in academic work. This mix of new and existing ombudspersons is intended to allow for both continuity and the change in ombudsperson ships required by the German Research Foundation (DFG).
The Scientific and Technical Council at HZB (WTR) recommended the four ombudspersons for appointment to the HZB management after carefully evaluating all proposals. The term of office of the ombudspersons begins on 1 January 2023 and ends on 31 December 2025.
Iver Lauermann and Yvonne Tomm retired as ombudspersons at the end of 2022 after their term of appointment ended. The HZB management and the WTR would like to thank the previous team for their dedicated and excellent work and wish the new ombudspersons a good start and much success!
The team of ombudspersons will introduce themselves to the staff in the coming weeks.
Rules of good scientific practice at HZB
In 2021, the HZB revised its rules of good scientific practice based on the recommendations of the DFG (see News). The catalogue of rules not only contains statements on what careful scientific work should look like, but also addresses the responsible supervision and education of young scientists.
What are the ombudspersons for?
The ombudspersons are the first point of contact for dealing with possible scientific misconduct. They also advise on questions regarding the supervision of young academics. The ombudspersons act with the greatest possible confidentiality. To avoid bias, persons from different scientific areas of the HZB have been appointed for this purpose.
- From Colombia to Berlin: Finding My Way in a New WorldIt was almost 11 p.m. when I arrived in Berlin. After a long journey from Colombia, all I wanted was to get to my accommodation, take a shower, and finally sleep.
Instead, I missed my train. Thinking it would follow the same route as the previous one as it would in my hometown of Medellín I confidently boarded the next train. About twenty minutes later, I realized something was wrong. I was heading in the wrong direction.
As if that was not enough, my phone battery was almost empty. Suddenly, I found myself alone in a city I had never visited before, late at night, speaking a language I did not understand, with no idea how to get back.
This was not how I had imagined the beginning of my first international trip....
- Precision interface chemistry pushes perovskite solar cells beyond 26% efficiencyAn international research collaboration has developed a new molecular strategy for controlling one of the most critical interfaces in perovskite solar cells. The resulting solar cells reached a power conversion efficiency of 26.19% in the n i p architecture, together with strong operational stability under prolonged illumination and elevated temperature. The results have been published in the Journal of the American Chemical Society.
- Perovskite triple-junction solar cells: Even more efficient with GO/SAM bilayersPerovskite semiconductors efficiently convert sunlight into electrical energy; they are also inexpensive and extremely lightweight. A team at HZB has developed a triple-junction solar cell comprising different perovskite semiconductors, with a novel bilayer of graphene oxide (GO) and a self-assembled monolayer (SAM) as the hole conductor. This bilayer significantly increases both efficiency and long-term stability. The efficiency of the novel perovskite triple-junction solar cell is 27.3% and shows hardly any decline even after more than 770 hours of operation. The study has been published in the renowned journal Joule.