Welcome to the Young Investigator Network (YIN)

In this edition of YIN Insight, the Hot Topic focuses on the 2nd KIT Further Development Act, which aims to unify the University Sector and the Large-Scale Research Sector – highlighting both the changes and opportunities for junior professors at KIT. With regard to changing laws and the pandemic, it seemed time to take a deep dive into the “12-year rule”, which affects many researchers on temporary contracts. The Scientific Highlights range from high-throughput drug screening with improved nuclear magnetic resonance, to restoring forests after fire, to exascale supercomputers. The Facts and Figures provide the current YIN metrics.

Portrait: Amadeus Bramsiepe, KIT / ECMWF

With the fellowship, the European Centre for Medium-Range Weather Forecasts (ECMWF) acknowledges Christian Grams pioneering scientific research. It will allow him and his group to collaborate more closely on process-oriented research of sub-seasonal prediction with colleagues at ECMWF. It will involve regular scientific exchange, joint publications, and access to the databases and computing facilities of ECMWF. “We, thus, hope to make rapid progress in expanding and better exploiting forecast skill on sub-seasonal timescales,” says Grams. ECMWF is an independent intergovernmental research institute and an operational weather service.

Markus Breig, KIT

Actinides are radioactive elements needed for specific cancer treatment or new remediation methods for radioactively contaminated areas. For her ERC project “The Actinide Bond – Actinide Bond Property in Gas, Liquid and Solid State”, YIN alumna Tonya Vitova concentrates on the relationship between covalency and the strength of the chemical actinide bonds. To this end, she combines synchrotron radiation-based X-ray spectroscopy methods with quantum chemistry calculations. Within YIN, she is the 14th ERC grantee and the 5th Helmholtz group leader to secure an ERC grant.