humboldt kosmos · humboldt kosmos 104 /2015 3 this is a photo of me during the nigerian elections...

IN THE BATTLE AGAINST MALARIA

New vaccine made of mosquito saliva

LIKE ALIENS IN GERMANY

The shattered dreams of African migrants

CHEATING ONE’S WAY TO SUCCESS?

Scientific misconduct and its consequences

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Humboldt kosmosNo. 104 / 2015 Research – Diplomacy – Internationality

26 000 researchers of all disciplines worldwide12 000 collaborative partners in Germany1001 new ideas1 place to connect Humboldt Life – the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’sonline network

www.humboldt-life.de

3Humboldt kosmos 104 /2015

This is a photo of me during the Nigerian elections in the spring. I was campaigning for the presidency. We ran a road show in the town of Ile-Ife, where I live, from the General Hospital to the university gate. In Nigeria, the major parties spend enormous sums on the elections. They sometimes rent an entire stadium with a huge stage and space for thousands of people. My party, the KOWA Party, is small. We do not have the funds for that kind of thing. And even if we did, I would not spend it on that.

Nigeria is a developing country – we need money for much more urgent things. Huge election events are a complete waste of resources. All we needed for our road show was a truck. We played my election jingle, which was composed by my daughter, over the loudspeakers and then I took the microphone and told people about our party’s programmes. I wanted people to see me in their own environment: in public spaces, at the shops where they work and shop, and on their own doorsteps. Until then, people only knew me from election posters.

The policeman in the picture was there to protect us: elections can turn violent in Nigeria, so any public campaign is always covered by policemen, but there was no violence at all during our own campaigns.

HUMBOLDTIANS IN PRIVATE

ME AT THE ELECTIONS

I am not bothered about not having won in the end. To be honest, the journey was more important for me than the destination. Altogether, I got 13,706 votes. The important thing is that the votes came from all over the country, from all 36 states. I am still contacted by people thank-ing me for standing for greater democracy in our country, especially for women’s participation.

But I am not about to disappear from the political scene. As long as there is still work to do to bring about change in Nigeria, greater moder-nity and social justice, you will find me out there. And who knows? Look at our new President Muhammadu Buhari: it was his fourth cam-paign this spring. Maybe that sets a good example.

Recorded by TERESA HAVLICEK

REMI SONAIYA is a retired professor of French language and linguis

tics. A Humboldt Research Fellow, she often spent time in Germany,

amongst others, at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. From

2008 to 2014, she was the Humboldt Foundation's Ambassador Scien

tist in Nigeria where she stood for the presidential elections in 2015,

the only woman against 13 men.

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06

COVER ILLUSTRATION MIRIAM BAUER

EDITORIAL

Dear readers,

The experiments conducted by the American medical researcher William Summerlin promised to revolutionise transplantation medicine: he transplanted patches of skin from a black mouse onto a white mouse without en-countering immunological rejection of the alien tissue. The purported breakthrough turned out to be a blatant deceit. Summerlin had darkened the fur with a standard commercial felt tip pen.

The scandal of the patchwork mouse attracted much attention in 1974. Today, Summerlin would probably not use a felt tip pen – the methods of fraud have become more subtle. But the audacity with which experiments and data are manipulated or even invented has remained the same. Just like the battering suffered by trust when supposedly luminary research, published in the most dis-tinguished journals, is suddenly found to contain errors or even be a forgery.

The research community is alarmed because the problem of scientific misconduct and non-reproducible research is growing. Even the Humboldt Foundation was recently confronted with controversial allegations of forgery against one of its award winners. This was part of our motivation for this magazine, which we hope will help to elucidate the complex origins of the problem and its consequences.

What emerges is that whilst the self-cleansing powers of science are still effective, they are increasingly reaching their limits. Discover what needs to be done to enhance them, the motives that drive dishonest researchers and the failings of the “faster, higher, further” system on the following pages.

GEORG SCHOLLEditor in Chief

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0603 HUMBOLDTIANS IN PRIVATE Me at the elections

06 BRIEF ENQUIRIES What drives researchers and what they are currently doing


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PUBLISHER Alexander von Humboldt Foundation

EDITORS IN CHIEF Georg Scholl (responsible),

Teresa Havlicek

EDITORS Ulla Hecken, Lena Schnabel

ENGLISH TRANSLATIONS Dr Lynda LichKnight

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Buchholz (Art Direction), Mareike Walter (Design)

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ADDRESS Alexander von HumboldtStiftung

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[email protected], www.humboldtfoundation.de

ISSN 03440354

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12 24 FOCUS

12 And lead us not into temptation Why scientists cheat

17 Honesty in science – a thing of the past? The research funders’ dilemma

20 “Willing to do anything for an article in Science” A conversation with the science manager Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker

24 FOCUS ON GERMANY Like aliens in Germany

28 CLOSE UP ON RESEARCH In the battle against malaria

34 NEWS

36 THE FACES OF THE FOUNDATION A who’s who of the people behind the scenes at the Humboldt Foundation


BRIEF ENQUIRIES

HOW DO WE KNOW IF IT’S SLIPPERY, MS DÖRSCHNER-BOYACI?

We recognise the colour and shape of things as well as what they are made of in all kinds of different situations. In everyday life, for exam-ple, this helps us to determine whether a surface is slippery before we step onto it. “Human sight is the most researched of our senses,” says Katja Dörschner-Boyaci. “Even so, we know almost nothing about how we use image information to decide whether something is smooth or rough, hard or soft, matt or shiny.”

And this is precisely what the psychologist would like to find out. So how can it be done? “By observing stimulus and response.” One sce-nario: “We create a computer animation of a moving, three-dimen-sional object.” Then Dörschner-Boyaci manipulates the type of move-ment, the form or the surface of the object and presents the animations to test subjects who are asked questions such as which objects look shinier. “The data tell us, for example, which manipulations influence the visual perception of shininess.”

What experiments like this have told Katja Dörschner-Boyaci and her colleagues is that it is not only the snapshot image that is crucial for recognising material properties but also the flow of images that reach the eye. “This is pretty novel,” she explains. “We used to think that moving images were mainly required for navigation purposes.”

DR KATJA DÖRSCHNER-BOYACI has been one of the Humboldt

Foundation’s Sofja Kovalevskaja Award Winners and a research

group leader at Justus Liebig University Giessen since 2014. Born in

Germany, she previously conducted research at Bilkent University

in Ankara, Turkey. Text RALF GRÖTKER


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BRIEF ENQUIRIES

An algorithm “is nothing to be afraid of. It’s just a procedural rule made up of a limited number of individual elements that achieves an unambiguous result.” The mathematician Ulrich Trottenberg is used to explaining this kind of thing. Filter algorithms on internet search engines, for instance, are accused of manipulating consumer behaviour and predator algorithms are blamed for black-box trad-ing on the stock market and for controlling world affairs.

Trottenberg monitors public opinion very closely and often inter-venes in the media debate. When the German writer Juli Zeh sent an open letter to Chancellor Angela Merkel in 2014 suggesting there should be an “Algorithmen-TÜV” (an MOT for algorithms), the expert replied, “The algorithms themselves are value-neutral. One and the same algo-rithm can be used to improve provisioning in a disaster area or to plan the most efficient military air strikes.”

Nonetheless, he thinks mathematicians have a two-fold duty: firstly, to explain matters. “Once you have understood how the weighting of Google search results functions you no longer feel so helpless. It should be on the school curriculum.” And secondly, to be inventive: “We mathematicians ought to develop new safety mechanisms for issues like privacy in the digital sphere,” says Ulrich Trottenberg. “But we would have to come to an agreement on which risks we actually want to contain.”

PROFESSOR DR ULRICH TROTTENBERG was the head of the

Fraunhofer Institute for Algorithms and Scientific Computing SCAI

and a professor of mathematics at the University of Cologne until

2012. Today, the Humboldt Research Award Winner is the executive

partner of a management consultancy firm. Text RALF GRÖTKER

HOW DANGEROUS ARE ALGORITHMS, MR TROTTENBERG?


Banana? Smells good – let’s home in. Petrol? Stinks – let’s beat it. How the miniscule brain of a fruit fly manages to recognise thou-sands of smells and decide whether they are good or harmful is the research focus of Humboldt Research Fellow Sudeshna Das at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology in Jena.

Das started working on Drosophila melanogaster back in Banga-lore. Now in Jena, the neurophysiologist is investigating how the nerve cells that regulate the fly’s spontaneous behaviour interact. “We know which nerve cells recognise smells,” says Das, “but we still don’t know which cells decide whether a smell is appealing or off-putting.”

By crossing 50 special, genetically-modified fly lines, she can target individual genes in order to activate or inactivate them. She can then test whether the flies find a banana enticing or repellent when a gene has been inactivated or a certain nerve cell is missing. To do so,

Sudeshna Das briefly sedates the flies and places them in a narrow glass tube, the flywalk. If the flies like the smell Das holds in front of their probosces they start to move in that direction. If they do not, they draw back or freeze.

And there is another issue that the Humboldt Research Fellow can investigate in Jena which she finds particularly interesting: how the flies’ sense of smell gives them the edge in the ecosystem, such as when a smell stops them from laying their eggs near a toxic substance.

DR SUDESHNA DAS is a researcher at the National Centre for

Biological Sciences in Bangalore, India. She has been a Humboldt

Research Fellow at the Max Planck Institute for Chemical Ecology

in Jena since June 2014. Text SASCHA KARBERG

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HOW DANGEROUS ARE ALGORITHMS, MR TROTTENBERG? WHY DO FLIES

MAKE A BEELINE FOR BANANA AROMA, MS DAS?


WHAT DO DOGS TEACH US, MR LEEB?

BRIEF ENQUIRIES

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Early on in his career, Tosso Leeb “went to the dogs”. But he looks back on it as a happy coincidence and not in the negative light usu-ally associated with the expression. “Dog breeds have enormous potential for genetic research,” says the professor of genetics at the University of Bern.

Most breeds were established 100 to 200 generations ago by just a few animals. Since then, their offspring have only been crossed amongst themselves – closed populations is the term that describes what for genetic researchers is an ideal situation. The concomitant inbreeding means that very rare hereditary diseases occur rather more frequently than they do in open populations like human beings. Genetic defects, which cause similar hereditary diseases in humans and dogs, are therefore easier to find amongst dogs. Take hereditary footpad hyperkeratosis: “The epi-dermis on the footpad develops fissures and can become very painfully

inflamed,” Leeb explains. Breeders of Irish Terriers and other similarly affected breeds sent in blood samples from dogs suffering from the con-dition. It emerged that the pathogenic difference was to be found in the FAM83G gene. “Up until then, nobody had known what exactly the func-tion of this gene was – neither in humans nor dogs,” he says.

So far, Leeb has concentrated on hereditary diseases affecting dogs’ external organs like the skin or hair. With the help of the Humboldt Research Award, which he received in 2014, he is now trying to dis-cover the causes of diseases of the nervous system as well.

PROFESSOR DR TOSSO LEEB from the Vetsuisse Faculty, Univer

sity of Bern, Switzerland, is a Humboldt Research Award Winner

collabora ting with the University of Veterinary Medicine Hannover.

Text SASCHA KARBERG


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n ARE STREET LIGHTS THE RADIO MASTS OF THE FUTURE, MR ZOU?

Yesterday it was a new milk tooth, today a grazed knee: all the things that happen to little Jinyi in Germany are soon communicated to her grandparents in China. Some 5,000 air miles divide Duisburg from Chengdu, but thanks to Skype & Co. the family can stay in con-tact. If only the smartphone images were less jerky, says Jinyi’s father, the engineering scientist Xihua Zou.

A faster mobile network could change all that – which is why the 33-year-old Chinese researcher has made his way to the University of Duisburg-Essen. Together with an international team, Zou is develop-ing one of the most important technologies for the next generation of mobile communication, 5G, the coherent radio over fiber method: the communication data stored in radio waves are sent by optical fibres to a base station and from there by wifi to the radio receiver. Today, this is usually done by microwave technology.

Very small antenna elements that can precisely align themselves play a key role in this new network. “We need them in public places every-where,” says Xihua Zou, “in street lights, too.” The idea is that the anten-nae produce a large number of cells which facilitate concurrent, energy-saving, ultrafast processing of vast amounts of data. Instead of today’s 100 megabits per second, 10 gigabits would be possible – whilst only using a tenth of the energy currently required. This new technology from Duisburg will have its baptism of fire at the Olympic Games in Japan in 2020. By that time, Xihua Zou’s daughter will be seven and, if all goes well, jerky images will have become a thing of the past.

Humboldt Research Fellow PROFESSOR DR XIHUA ZOU plans to

re turn from the University of DuisburgEssen to his own institution, the

Southwest Jiaotong University in China, in summer 2016. Text LILO BERG


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Curiosity and greed are dangerous bedfellows. A scientist submits a funding application although he already knows the results. Another publishes a manuscript that he was supposed to be reviewing as his own work. A research group leader reports that publications written by members of her group are being accused of being manipulated. And, indeed, the young scientists actually had falsified the data. But worse than that, their boss had taken no interest in the authenticity of the findings and had even been cited as co-author.

These are all cases that have happened in Germany. The German Research Foundation (Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft, DFG) has compiled the information and knows the names of everyone involved. Manipulation is an issue that now reaches up into the highest institu-

tions. It even recently affected Germany’s most important research award, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship. Earlier this year, the social psychologist Jens Förster of Ruhr-Universität Bochum relin-quished the Humboldt Foundation’s five million euro award after his former university had raised allegations of data manipulation.

Misconduct, manipulation, not to say, fraud in science are becom-ing a problem. If they were not, the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat) – the highest German advisory body in this field – would hardly have just published a lengthy memorandum on the issue. It is a call for urgent change: only half of academic courses teach even the rudiments of working correctly; many experiments can-not be replicated because “so far, less than half of the universities

Text THOMAS VITZTHUM Illustrations MIRIAM BAUER

AND LEAD US NOT INTO TEMPTATIONFraud scandals shake the credibility of science. The perpetrators are driven by personal motives such as the craving for recognition or greed for success. But the real reasons for fraud and manipulation are embedded in the system.

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now ombudspeople in many places in Germany. But there is no data base collating the cases. And this grey area is difficult to assess, accord-ing to Löwer. “We can only follow up on things that are reported to us.” Usually, the people who are able to report on misconduct are part of the system themselves. Putting one’s own reputation on the line, harming one’s own career, endangering the future of the laboratory and the colleagues working in it is a threshold that is difficult to cross.

WHO IS GOING TO ADMIT TO A CRAVING FOR RECOGNITION?All disciplines are susceptible. The form of misconduct made famous by prominent examples – plagiarism – is, however, on the decline, according to Dorothee Dzwonnek, DFG Secretary General. Taking a look at the cases she has investigated, it is fraud in the lab and amongst researchers who work on their own data that is on the up. “The prob-lem is accelerating in the life sciences, in particular. Pressure increases and with it the danger, and sometimes the tendency, that people con-sciously or unconsciously make mistakes.” Anxiety about the future is the main reason given in the explanations of people’s conduct. Who is going to admit to a craving for recognition?

In a series of articles in the journal The Lancet last year, the authors claimed that 80 per cent of biomedical research was “waste”. A result that cannot be replicated, even if the conditions of the original exper-iment are reproduced precisely, is also “waste”. “It’s only true if you can cook it for yourself,” says Löwer pithily. This is the core principle of science and progress, but it is ignored on a grand scale. Some 70 per cent of all studies in the biosciences are purportedly not reproducible. In the neurosciences figures of up to 90 per cent are in circulation. These are just estimates because very little actually finds its way into others’ cooking pots.

THE NUMBER OF RETRACTIONS IS GROWINGSo scandals are rare. In July 2014, the Journal of Vibration and Con-trol retracted 60 studies, which turned out to contain errors, at a single blow. The publisher BioMed Central has just withdrawn 43 papers. Manipulations are purported to have occurred during the review pro-cess. Of course, reviewers can miss errors. But that they do so inten-

that responded have implemented the recommendations on long-term data storage”. Data are supposed to be retained for ten years.

GREED ROTS THE MINDThe Council is critical of the fact that there is a growing trend “to pre-sent one’s results as groundbreaking in order to be able to publish them”. Biomedical research, in particular, promises much. “Greed rots the mind,” says Wolfgang Löwer, the German Research Ombudsman, who has been dealing with cases of academic misconduct for the last ten years. Löwer shudders when he thinks of a paper in the journal Nature which even made it onto the evening news in 2014. The experi-ment: you take mouse cells, pour citric acid over them, mix it all up and – done. This is the way to turn around the ageing process, to create stem cells. Therapies for millions of people. The salvation of human-ity. But the Japanese-US research group had cheated – the article was retracted.

That there were no German researchers involved in this case is pure chance, because research is no longer a national affair. It is interna-tionally connected. The mechanisms that lead to fraud, deception or to looking the other way are universal. “The competition is huge. And, on top of this, today everyone works in teams. That makes it easier to cover up who is responsible for what, which can favour deception,” says Löwer. In one of the recent editions of Nature there is an article on the decay of elementary particles citing no fewer than 3,000 contrib-utors. Such extreme examples illustrate how difficult it is to prove responsibility when misconduct is discovered.

Of course, most researchers do work responsibly. It is not as though Löwer deals with thousands or even just hundreds of such cases every year. But that is not saying much, because he is only concerned with cases that are not dealt with by the universities themselves. There are

YOU TAKE MOUSE CELLS, POUR CITRIC ACID OVER THEM, MIX IT ALL UP AND — DONE.

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tionally is a new dimension. On the internet, such articles can often still be accessed despite the retraction. This is where the blog “Retrac-tion Watch”, run by two journalists, tries to create transparency. Along-side the study itself, they publish the reasons for the retraction. Every day witnesses new entries. Some 60 per cent of all retractions are due to misconduct and not to unintentional errors.

At this point, the auxiliary discipline of statistics comes into its own. “In Germany, there are only very few faculties and departments of statistics. At universities it is often only an optional subject, part of mathematics, for example,” says Dorothee Dzwonnek. This urgently needs changing because nowadays statistical methods are required in all sectors, she continues. Statistical dilettantism means that the results of surveys and experiments are generalised too quickly, that the num-

ber of cases used is too small and unrepresentative, or that uncom-fortable data are simply ignored. Sometimes experiments are perpet-uated until the desired result is achieved. The temptation is particularly strong in contract research when industrial clients have invested a lot of money. Anyone hoping for, or dependent on, follow-up funding is already in the danger zone. The number of researchers who are not dependent on state funding is increasing continually – which is not good for autonomy.

THE COMPLICITY OF THE LUXURY JOURNALSPart of the responsibility for misconduct lies with the specialist pub-lishing houses. Researchers need to publish – only those with an impressive record are successful. In The Guardian in 2013, Nobel

THE NUMBER OF RESEARCHERS WHO ARE NOT DEPENDENT ON STATE FUNDING IS INCREASING CONTINUALLY.

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It is painful to have to admit that, ever more frequently, the research community is being forced to address a problem which is not, how-ever, particularly new: the number of publica-tions being withdrawn is on the increase, sci-entific scandals hit the headlines too often, the reproducibility of data leaves a great deal to be desired in far too many studies – and this is just the start of the list of shortcomings. If these findings are indicative of an honesty problem, then the entire science system is affected, research funders included, as the recent, controversial case at the Humboldt Foundation proves. A researcher who had been chosen to receive the Humboldt Professorship and its five million euros in funding was accused of scientific misconduct. The person involved, who denies the charges, relinquished the award before the Humboldt Foundation could hold deliberations on whether to grant sponsorship which it had temporarily sus-pended following the announcement of the allegations.

How would we have come to a decision if the researcher had not stepped down? This question uncovers a general dilemma. A fund-ing organisation like the Humboldt Founda-tion is not an institution for examining scien-tific misconduct; neither does it conduct reproducibility studies or contract others to do so. It does not have a team of experienced statisticians who could scan publications for methodological errors and it is not even enti-tled to revise the judgements of committees or ombudspeople at home and abroad.

The Foundation has to have trust, must be able to have trust – be it in the honesty and integrity of academics and research institu-tions, the critical, fair appraisal and healthy scepticism of reviewers or, finally, that the self-cleansing powers of science actually work. In the vast majority of cases, this really does seem to happen. But we have to recognise that the review system has long since reached its lim-

its given the sheer volume it is faced with today. Concern that something might get over-looked is simply increasing. And how do we deal with allegations? Are there errors (“venial sins”) that are forgivable? Are researchers totally innocent until proved indubitably guilty? Or when the first serious doubts are

raised, is it a case of “if there is doubt, there is no doubt” to quote the famous dictum of Mas-sachusetts Institute of Technology?

We should not and shall not look for easy answers. Matters have to be weighed up care-fully because the consequences for the career and life of the person involved may be irre-versible. Moreover, it does not require an over-active imagination to envisage an unholy alli-ance between the honesty issues outlined here and the ever fiercer competitive spiral which could generate yet more allegations of fraud. The accusation of falsification, invention or plagiarism could develop into a crippling instrument of combat, used by every compet-itor to disqualify others from the race for funding or positions. I fear that we will not be spared this horror scenario in times to come.

But we are not defenceless, and the hope that science knows how to defend itself is not built on sand. At the annual meeting of the influential US National Academy of Sciences, Ralph Cicerone, its President, held a remark-able speech which not only included a self-critical appraisal of the problems but also numerous suggestions for improving the situ-ation: from replicating important studies,

which is already being funded by the Laura and John Arnold Foundation, particularly in medical and experimental psychological research, via alternative, open publication paths like eLife, to voluntary commitments by the leading scientific journals and research institutions.

In order to solve science’s honesty problem, however, more than this is required. A clear stand should be taken against the trend to clas-sify “cheating” – whether at school or later on in research – as a trivial offence.

No: honesty and integrity are not negotiable.

HONESTY IN SCIENCE – A THING OF THE PAST?Text HELMUT SCHWARZ

FRAUD ALLEGATIONS TURN INTO AN INSTRUMENT OF COMBAT

PROFESSOR DR HELMUT SCHWARZ is the President of the Alexander von

Humboldt Foundation. A muchdecorated,

internationally eminent chemist, he

teaches at Technische Universität Berlin.

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ers prefer to shine rather than admit their errors or copy what others claim to have discovered. Reproducing someone else’s findings is not seen as an achievement. There is hardly any funding to be had for it – which is why it takes such a long time before certain things come to light. Even serious offences.

Just like the case of Jan Hendrik Schön. The Austrian was a researcher in Konstanz, Germany, and the United States at the turn of this century. In 2001, the physicist published an average of one article every eight days. No one wondered about this. Years later, his scam was exposed: he had used identical measurement series for different experiments. Schön lost his job in the US, the University of Konstanz stripped him of his doctorate, and that was that. “People like Schön have several generations of doctoral students on their conscience who spent years trying to replicate their findings or develop them further,” says Kühne. Today, Schön is an engineer in a chemicals company. He was never prosecuted under criminal law.

THE CHEATS DO NOT HAVE MUCH TO FEAR FROM THE LAWThe scandal revolving around the cancer researcher Friedhelm Herr-mann also turned out harmlessly for the protagonist. Around the turn of the millennium, it was proven that he had manipulated 100 out of 350 publications. The DFG wanted to make an example of the case and took it to court. But the case was dropped on the condition that he paid € 8,000. The man who was responsible for one of the biggest scandals in German research history currently has an oncological practice on Marienplatz in Munich and is still allowed to use the title of professor.

So the delinquents do not have much to fear from the law because it is difficult to prove how much harm erroneous studies really do. “In and for science it is accepted that it is a closed system that cleanses

IT IS NATURAL THAT RESEARCHERS PREFER TO SHINE RATHER THAN ADMIT THEIR ERRORS ALTHOUGH FAILURE CAN ADVANCE SCIENCE.

Laureate in medicine Randy Schekman drew a comparison with the financial crisis. “The incentives my colleagues face are not huge bonuses, but the professional rewards that accompany publication in prestigious journals – chiefly Nature, Cell and Science. These luxury journals are supposed to be the epitome of quality, publishing only the best research.” Whereby they are essentially honing their own reputation. Just as Wall Street needs to break the hold of the bonus culture, “so science must break the tyranny of the luxury journals,” he concludes. “The result will be better research that better serves science and society.”

Only those who can boast success usually have a chance of being published. Sounds logical. But it is fatal, because it engenders miscon-duct. “Studies that do not confirm a hypothesis will not be published. Although failure may advance science further than endorsement,” says Thomas Kühne, editor of the magazine JUnQ, an initiative of doctoral candidates at Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. “JUnQ” is an acronym for Journal of Unsolved Questions. The magazine publishes studies, which have not produced the desired results, to prevent oth-ers from setting out on a fruitless endeavour. It is natural that research-

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DR THOMAS SEBASTIAN VITZTHUM is a political

editor at the daily news

paper Die Welt. A slightly

amended version of this

article originally appeared

in the Welt am Sonntag.

itself,” says Dorothee Dzwonnek. The loss of title and respect is the worst possible punishment. In the cases cited at the beginning, the DFG issued reprimands and withdrew the right to submit applications. “Anyone who is banned from submitting applications to the DFG over a long period of time can say goodbye to their reputation,” comments Dzwonnek.

Every year, she is presented with up to 40 cases for review. Against the backdrop of the 30,000 projects the DFG funds, this is not very much, but the DFG only promotes the best and has a strict selection procedure. This sets the bar very high. Moreover, the organisation only investigates cases that have not been reported anonymously. “We have to protect researchers from accusations of this kind, which are some-times almost pathological.” But if someone is found guilty, their name may even be published.

Awful as it may be for an individual to be pilloried, what is worse is the loss of credibility suffered by the science system as a whole. How quickly it can decline has been demonstrated by the plagiarism cases amongst politicians in Germany. “Researchers are driven by three

motives,” says Wolfgang Löwer, “and however positive the relevant vocabulary in the original German may be, it contains the very rea-sons for fraud and deception: curiosity (Neugier contains the word for greed), ambition (Ehrgeiz expresses a disposition to be economical with honour) and passion (Leidenschaft), which seldom spares us from suffer ing (leiden).”

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Interview GEORG SCHOLL Illustrations MIRIAM BAUER

“ WILLING TO DO ANY THING FOR AN ARTICLE IN SCIENCE”Enormous departments and steep hierarchies are partly responsible for making the research community susceptible to fraud, according to the biochemist and research manager Ernst-Ludwig Winnacker. A conversation about responsibility and temptation and why reviewers should follow the example of the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra.

KOSMOS: Mr Winnacker, the number of sci-entific articles that have had to be withdrawn due to errors has increased tenfold in the last decade. Are you worried about the integrity of science?

WINNACKER: I am indeed very worried. Also when I hear that 80 per cent of all clini-cal studies are not replicable. This is not accept-able, neither for public nor for private funders. In the United States, the Senate and Congress are already asking themselves why they dedi-cate public funds to supporting such nonsense. For the reputation of science, it’s terrible.

Are people losing faith in science?That is the danger. Just think of the flaws

in the report of the Intergovernmental Panel on Climate Change.

You mean the erroneous prediction that the glaciers in the Himalayas would melt by 2035 …

Exactly, the media highlighted the “glacier error” and the authors had to correct them-

selves. As a result, last year’s follow-up report hardly attracted the attention it deserved. And the climate sceptics said it was all falsified anyway.

There was also a lot of publicity at the begin-ning of last year about two articles in Nature by a Japanese junior professor who claimed that stem cells could be generated from nor-mal body cells using citric acid – which would have been a medical sensation, but turned out to be false …

… and was discovered very quickly. Even before the the articles were published there were blogs saying something was wrong. In May, Nature withdrew the articles. The re searcher had manipulated her data. That suggests nothing less than criminal intent. But I believe her environment was partly to blame.

In what way?We are talking about a young woman in an

environment dominated by extreme hierar-chies in which young people in general, and

women in particular, have very little say. I assume she had simply been left on her own in this system, in a field that is highly compet-itive. In this kind of research at the bounda-ries of knowledge, you are not given a million to research the immortality of a May beetle. You need a spectacular theme. She searched for one and apparently hit on a pretty stupid idea.

Why didn’t the co-authors realise what was going on?

Possibly because they hadn’t even read the paper. That is the curse of impact factors, which reveal how well you are represented in the renowned journals. Everyone desperately wants to publish an article in Science, Cell or Nature. And they are willing to do anything to get it. So if you can jump on the running board of a publication, all the better. But papers should only feature authors who have really been involved in the work and not someone who just happens to be the head of the institute and actu-ally works on something completely different. ›


It’s quite usual for the boss’s name to appear on the paper …

Yes, although not as often as it used to be. If their names appear they have to take respon-sibility. That is why, as a university teacher, I must always be in a position to understand the experiments. I have to be able to inject an embryo cell myself in order to know that my postdoc cannot possibly inject a thousand a second as he says he can. You have to give advice and support to young people: when should I publish and where? Which meetings should I attend and which not? You have to listen to them and think up mechanisms which will allow them to present their science to older colleagues. You can’t leave them to stew in their own research juice.

Have German universities taken this to heart?

Some have, some haven’t. I still admire the American system. They don’t have these enor-mous departments we do. Nor the tendency to feel obliged to acquire ever more staff. If we are honest with ourselves, we know you can’t work with more than ten or twelve PhD students at once. If you build up an empire, a giant depart-ment, you end up with steep hierarchies and the boss becomes totally invisible. Flatter hier-archies are less susceptible to fraud.

And if you do suspect fraud?Then you need mechanisms to deal with it.

It can’t be right that people risk their careers just for pointing out errors. If, for example, a

doctoral student notices that his boss is hid-ing something, and this boss is the dean of the faculty, then he has no one else to talk to except his own boss. Quite apart from the fact that a doctoral student in a medical or chemistry fac-ulty would probably not even get as far as an appointment with the dean. He or she should be able to turn to independent ombudspeople who would be able to tackle even the dean of a faculty. There are a lot of them now, but not by any means everywhere.

What drives dishonest researchers, apart from the pressure to succeed, and makes them run the enormous risk of being discov-ered sooner or later?

Craving for recognition, vanity? People become celebrities, the hub of media interest. There are colleagues who go for that sort of thing, think it is wonderful to suddenly have an official car or an office of 60 square metres instead of 20. But people who really believe they are as important as they want to appear can be found everywhere, not just in academia.

How do you explain the fact that people who have been found guilty of fraud admit their errors but deny forgery? Do they end up believing in their own manipulation?

Of course, you do have to believe in your own hypotheses. But you also have to be able to propose a new hypothesis when your exper-iments disprove the old one. That’s as it should be. But there are people who are so convinced of their experiments and theories that they shut

“ IF YOU CAN JUMP ON THE RUNNING BOARD OF A PUBLICATION, ALL THE BETTER.”

FOCUS


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PROFESSOR DR ERNST-LUDWIG WINNACKER was a founder member and the first Secretary

General of the European Research Council (2007

to 2009); he was previously the President of the

German Research Foundation. A bio chemist and

molecular biologist, he conducted research at uni

versities in Germany, Sweden, Switzerland and the

United States and was academic host to several

Humboldtians. Since 2009, he has held the position

of Secretary General of the international Human

Frontier Science Program in Strasbourg, France.

out discrepancies, brush an inconsistent result under the carpet, or say, can’t be, the PhD stu-dent must have mucked up the experiment.

Scientific fraud sometimes only comes to light years later. In the interim, the cheats have honours and funding heaped on them. Why don’t the research funders realise what’s going on? After all, they review the applications submitted by the supposed luminaries.

Because we work on the presumption of innocence. Initially, there is no reason what-soever to suspect anyone. After all, 99 per cent of scientists are reputable. Sometimes it is pure chance that you notice something, like one of our reviewers who read a passage in an appli-cation that sounded familiar. He checked and discovered that he was reading his own words, a passage he himself had once written in an application.

But you surely don’t want to rely on chance?We hope that our reviewers are so good

that they discover when something is not new or not plausible. We have to trust in the self-cleansing power of science. If it is really important, an experiment is replicated, as in the Japanese example I mentioned before. But when it comes to large-scale case studies this is not so easy.

For example?Think of medical trials or sociological stud-

ies. They have to be organised very carefully using the double-blind method; you have to have sufficiently large, representative groups, and accrue scrupulously accurate statistics. To carry out a study like this twice just to control something is very expensive. And sometimes impossible. You can’t identically replicate a trial involving 2,000 individual patients.

Are reviewers dazzled by big names?That is a danger. We advise our reviewers

to ignore the impact factor or h-index and con-centrate exclusively on scientific quality. This could mean rejecting a Nobel Laureate because even in these circles it can happen that one doesn’t have anything new to offer. If we were to rely exclusively on bibliometrics and pres-tigious awards, we really would be dazzled. The San Francisco Declaration on Research Assessment of 2012 takes account of this. It should be signed and practised by all research organisations.

been blacked out beforehand. But in the case of young researchers you don’t know so well, it certainly can be done. When researchers are applying for really big grants there should always be a personal interview at the end of the process as there are for ERC Starting Grants. Then you usually notice if something’s amiss.

Do penitent transgressors deserve a second chance in science?

Of course, there will always be gamblers who simply take a chance and see what hap-pens. So then their careers are over and they set up a company or live off their parents or marital partner. Returning to the academic system, where everything is based on trust, is hardly going to be an option. That’s something everyone who cheats should realise.

In that agreement, more than 80 leading international institutes and science organi-sations decided not to focus on bibliometric factors but on the merits of the research.Yes, but how do you do it? And how do you prevent partiality in the face of big names? I really admire the Vienna Philharmonic Orchestra. They had never employed a woman until they started holding auditions behind a curtain. And suddenly, they had female musi-cians in the orchestra. How can we introduce such a curtain into science?

And?Unfortunately, it is not as easy for us as it is

for musicians. When you read a publication by an eminent candidate, you usually already know who has written it, even if the name has


FOCUS ON GERMANY

Like being on a strange planet: many African

migrants find it difficult to settle down in Germany.


LIKE ALIENS IN GERMANYFor years, the Nigerian psychologist Erhabor Sunday Idemudia has been investigating the situation of African migrants in Germany. A conversation about dreams and illusions, pride and loneliness.

Interview LILO BERG Photos NIKOLAUS BRADE

Mr Idemudia, how are African migrants doing in Germany?

Not very well, in a nutshell. Most complain about discrimination due to their colour, job insecurity and endless hassle in their everyday lives. Their dreams have not come true.

What had they expected?They thought they were coming to the Promised Land,

the land of milk and honey where the streets are paved with gold. That sounds naïve, but many young Africans really do imagine life in Germany and other western coun-tries to be a bit like this.

Don’t they know about the refugee dramas in the Medi-terranean, the growing hostility towards foreigners in Europe?

Of course it doesn’t pass them by; the media and the internet are full of it. But the young people simply don’t want to believe it. They are suspicious and think people are just trying to ruin their dreams of a better life. So they set out on their journey even if they don’t have any money or any idea what they are going to live on in their new home.

You launched your first study of the situation of African migrants in Germany about ten years ago. What has changed since then?

The trend is the same, but our findings show that it has become even more pronounced in the last few years.

“I’m an Alien in Deutschland” is the title of a book pre-senting the findings of your research. Why the title?

It’s a quotation from one of the people participating in the study and it summarises exactly how many African migrants feel in Germany: like outsiders, sometimes even extraterrestrials.

Isn’t this sometimes true of migrants all over the world?A certain degree of what we call acculturative stress,

inner tension when finding one’s way in a new culture, is indeed normal. Usually, after the initial shock, this feel-ing gradually diminishes. This is not the case with many Africans in Germany. And this is the most amazing out-come of our studies so far: their stress level increases the longer they stay in the country, irrespective of whether they are economic migrants or refugees, legal or illegal migrants.

How do you explain this?The pressure doesn’t ease up, it is permanent. What

causes many Africans such heartache is that they can’t find a decent job in Germany. But also that life as a whole is very strenuous. In our surveys people often complained about racial discrimination and prejudice amongst Germans.

Which people are particularly prone to this chronic acculturative stress?

So-called economic migrants are the main risk group, that is, people who have left their homes for economic rather than political reasons. They are the major butt of racially-imbued rejection. We did not find any differences in the intensity of acculturative stress between legal and illegal migrants. Students experience the least pressure, the well-educated unemployed the most. However, a key ›


factor in susceptibility to stress is being separated from the family, wife or husband.

Could it be that African migrants experience a particu-larly high degree of psychological stress without their families and partners?

It is certainly possible, because for us, family and chil-dren are part and parcel of a happy life. For Germans, this seems to be quite different. Many can imagine living a ful-

filling life without children and close relatives. The defini-tion of happiness is shaped by culture and in order to dis-cover what Africans mean by this we are currently developing a testing procedure at my own university in South Africa.

Apparently African migrants seldom find happiness in Germany – but many of them stay in the country for a long time. Why?

Those participating in our surveys spent an average of 7.5 years in Germany, some even as much as 20 years. They remain because the living conditions are better than they are at home. But hardly any of them wants to stay on in Germany permanently. By 60, at the latest, most of them want to leave. Or do you see any grey-haired Africans in Germany like you do in the UK?

You have spent many years investigating the situation of African migrants in Germany and Europe. What drives you?

So many young people from my country run head over heels into difficulties – I want to do something about it. Euro-peans can hardly imagine how fixated young Africans are on Europe. It’s a pandemic. And it is fuelled by thousands of unscrupulous human traffickers who promise young peo-ple heaven on earth. So if they can’t find work at home and see no future for themselves, they set off for the north.

Don’t those who are unhappy in Germany warn them off? Most of them are too proud to admit the truth. At home,

nobody knows that they are unemployed and dealing in drugs or prostitution. And those who have poorly-paid, low-level jobs like dishwashers in restaurants or corpse washers also keep it to themselves.

What do you want to do to stem the exodus of young people?

So far, there has been no objective, comprehensive study on the situation of African migrants in Europe. We want to fill this gap with a new study that’s starting this year. As soon

“OUR YOUNG PEOPLE ARE FIXATED ON EUROPE.”

FOCUS ON GERMANY


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PROFESSOR DR ERHABOR SUNDAY IDEMUDIA comes

from Nigeria. The psychologist

focusses on the problems of

vulnerable populations like refu

gees, prisoners, HIVinfected

individuals and those with men

tal health issues, making im

portant contributions to trauma

therapy and AIDS prevention.

Since 2013, he has been head of

the Department of Psychology at NorthWest

University in Mahikeng, South Africa, where he

is currently a research professor at the School

of Research and Postgraduate Studies. Having

been granted a Georg Forster Research Award

in 2015, Idemudia returned to Bremen where

he had held a Humboldt Research Fellowship

from 2002 to 2003. He is now cooperating,

amongst others, with TransCoop partner Klaus

Boehnke and Anneliese Maier Research Award

Winner Michele J. Gelfand at Jacobs University

and Bremen International Graduate School of

Social Sciences. In his native region of Nigeria,

Erhabor S. Idemudia has inherited the position

of High Chief from his father; he holds the title

“The Obarode of Ekpoma” (Kinginwaiting).

as we have convincing scientific data, I shall address the gov-ernments of Nigeria, Ghana and other relevant countries to go public together. There have been very successful cam-paigns against AIDS on television and in the media. Why shouldn’t we repeat it for another epidemic, mass migration?

What real alternatives are there for young people?When it comes to training, work and future prospects,

politics is called upon. There is so much to do. Given the surge from the south, European governments are prepared to help. One small but very significant building block are scholarships which would allow far more young talents from Africa to spend time in Europe – but on a financially secure, fixed-term basis.

You have been coming to Germany frequently for the last twelve years. How do Germans treat you?

I have very nice colleagues and friends here and I enjoy being in their company. Apart from which, I enjoy meet-ing new people and often approach them myself. Young people are often more open in their response than older people – there are certainly differences.

You don’t experience racism on the street or in the super-market?

I don’t think I would register it if I did. My aerials are tuned to other things. If a person is prejudiced in that way, it would probably cause stress – for the other person, not for me.

When you came to Germany for the first time in 2003, there were no refugee boats in the Mediterranean and no Pegida (Patriotic Europeans Against the Islamisation of the West). How do you judge this development?

This is a very big problem. Right-wing political move-ments, which now exist in many countries, not just in Ger-many, only exacerbate the problem. We need sustainable solutions and they can only be found by the EU and Afri-can governments working together. We hope our new study will expedite the process.

“THE STRESS LEVEL OF AFRICAN

MIGRANTS INCREASES THE LONGER THEY

LIVE IN GERMANY.”


IN THE BATTLE AGAINST MALARIA

No more than just six millimetres long: the anopheles mosquito is slight and self-effacing. But when the little creature bites, it transmits one of the deadliest diseases in the world: a person dies of malaria every twelve seconds. The fact that so many people die as a result of a mere mosquito bite is “one of the greatest tragedies of the 21st century” according to Margaret Chan, Director-General of the World Health Organization (WHO).

For Francine Ntoumi, it is not just a tragedy but, rather, a challenge and the motivation to find a solution. The molecular biologist walks down the long, white corridors of the Institute for Tropical Medicine at the University of Tübingen where she is currently working thanks to a Humboldt Foundation Georg Forster Research Award. She wants to find what many have long considered impossible: an effective vac-cine against malaria. Ntoumi is 53. She has spent many years of her life in labs, doing research on the most serious infectious diseases like HIV, tuberculosis and malaria. Her friends say that she would even enquire about the progress of her work from her sickbed.

Ntoumi points to a chart showing the malaria parasite plasmodium falciparum, a human being and a mosquito. The tiny, single-cell para-sites find their way into the human bloodstream in the saliva of the

anopheles mosquito. The sporozoites then proceed to the liver tissue where they reproduce until there are so many of them that the liver cell bursts and releases the pathogens into the bloodstream. There they attach themselves to the red corpuscles, reproduce and attack other red corpuscles. “This is when the first symptoms kick in: headache, fever, rheumatic pains,” says Francine Ntoumi.

THE PATHOGEN IS A COMPLEX BEINGFor years, the molecular biologist searched for a weak link in the par-asite’s lifecycle and characterised types of parasite in order to try and prevent proliferation. But it is not easy to discover a vaccine – malaria parasites are pretty complex beings. They spend half of their lives in a cold-blooded insect and the other half in a warm-blooded human being. During their lifecycle they change their appearance seven times. A vaccine that might work during one stage may stop being effective when the pathogen changes again.

In the entire course of human history, no other disease has claimed as many lives as malaria. It has plagued humanity for more than 4,000 years. Even today, roughly one third of the global population is at risk from malaria, particularly in tropical and subtropical areas of Africa.

Text SILKE WEBER Photos DAVID MATTHIESSEN

The molecular biologist Francine Ntoumi established independent malaria research in Africa and is now involved in developing a promising vaccine against this tropical disease.

CLOSE UP ON RESEARCH

›


Francine Ntoumi, currently a Georg Forster Research Award Winner in Tübingen, is considered a pioneer of infection research in Africa.



According to the WHO, in 2013 alone, 200 million people suffered from malaria, some 600,000 of them did not survive. By comparison: since the outbreak of the most recent Ebola epidemic in West Africa, the WHO has registered roughly 25,000 infections and over 10,000 deaths.

Researchers have been trying to find a remedy for malaria for years. This has produced curious experiments like the development of a per-fume for cows which was supposed to attract the mosquitoes to cattle instead of people. Up to now, the most reliable protection in risk areas has been mosquito nets treated with insecticide and targeted mosquito control. Although millions have been pumped into research, success has been modest so far: there are still no effective long-term vaccines against malaria. Even the protection provided by the so-called RTS,S vaccine, which could hit the market in 2016, did not prove to be par-ticularly long-lasting in the vaccine trials, nor was it effective in all cases. Only 30 to 50 per cent experienced temporary immunity.

“We have to start there,” says Ntoumi, “at the beginning.” She is now pointing at the mosquito on the chart which is just sticking its proboscis into human skin and transferring the pathogenic sporo-zoites into the human bloodstream. The RTS,S vaccine attacks the

parasite when it wants to enter the liver to reproduce. “But the ideal vaccine,” claims Francine Ntoumi, “would not allow the pathogens to proceed to the liver and enter the bloodstream in the first place; it would immediately unleash an immune reaction to all the stages of malaria.”

Born in Congo, Ntoumi studied at the distinguished Université Pierre et Marie Curie in Paris, France, gaining a doctorate in sickle cell genetics at the age of 26. As a child in Africa she often suffered from

IN THE ENTIRE COURSE OF HUMAN HISTORY, NO OTHER DISEASE HAS CLAIMED AS MANY LIVES AS MALARIA.

Neuropsy

chiatric

disord

ers Cancer

Cardiovasc

ular dise

ases

Malaria

Tuberculosis

Diarrhoeal d

isease

s

134

103

127 7

70

36

HIV/Aids

FEW NEW DRUGSAcross the globe, 850 new drugs and vaccines were approved or recommended between 2000 and 2011. 307 of them relate to neuro psychiatric disorders, cancer and cardiovascular diseases. The so-called neglected, poverty-related diseases – such as malaria, tuberculosis and diarrhoeal diseases – fall way behind in the statistics.

Source: Belen Pedrique et al., The drug and vaccine landscape for neglected diseases (2000–11). The Lancet Global Health 2013 (Vol. 1)


malaria. Far away in Paris, she could have left all that behind her. The so-called swamp fever died out in the areas around the Danube, Rhine and Seine at the end of the 19th century. Nowadays, economic con-siderations mean pharmaceutical companies tend to focus on cancer, diabetes and cardiac drugs. But Ntoumi was not indifferent to the issue of malaria in her own continent. She had respected her father’s wishes and moved to France to get a better education, like her parents before her. Now, with a doctorate and initial research experience under her belt, she wanted to return to Africa to focus on malaria.

“YOU’RE RISKING YOUR CAREER” Everyone said she was mad, she explains in her office in Tübingen. At the beginning of the 1990s, there were neither proper labs nor estab-lished researchers in Africa. Her friends, colleagues and even her PhD supervisor thought she was risking her scientific career. “Forget it! You’ll never get anywhere!” they claimed. “You won’t be able to work there.” But the doubters did not know that their misgivings simply fired her engines. And of course, no one guessed that she would estab-lish independent African malaria research in Africa and become one of the world’s most eminent malaria researchers.

Ntoumi was one of the first researchers in Africa to use molecular biological tools to study malaria. She set up a molecular biological laboratory in Congo and taught young researchers at the university in the capital of Brazzaville how to extract DNA. Today, Ntoumi is the project coordinator of the Central Africa Network on Tuber-culosis, HIV/AIDS and Malaria, a cross-border research network involving Congo, Cameroon and Gabon. Prior to that, she had already coordinated the Multilateral Initiative on Malaria. For her work on infection control and her efforts to improve research conditions in Africa she has received prizes such as the African Union Award for the continent’s best female researcher in 2012. Ntoumi heads the international publication lists and publishes her articles in the most respected scientific journals like Science and The Lancet. She has even featured in some African magazines alongside the pictures of bas-ketball players and artists. This makes her laugh, as though it were a joke. “Seems that science has become a little bit sexy,” she comments.

When Francine Ntoumi goes out to do something, she usually achieves it. She grew up with five brothers and soon learned to assert herself. Her father, an “educational climber” from a poor background, made no distinctions between boys and girls. He demanded hard

In Africa, Francine Ntoumi was one of

the first researchers to use molecular

biological tools to study malaria.

›



work and good marks. She was always supposed to be one of the three best in her class – and this she managed. Her father trained her to be a high-flyer and Francine certainly aimed high. Only once was she fourth in her class, for which she was grounded. The director of the Institute for Tropical Medicine in Tübingen, Peter Kremsner, calls her a “natural leader who can assert herself and stand up to strong men” – although he has to look down on her in conversation. At 1.64 metres, Ntoumi is a fairly short woman who is often underestimated because of her size – rather like the malaria mosquito.

FIRST TRIALS RAISE HOPES OF SUCCESSNtoumi’s finger is back on the chart with the mosquito and the sporo-zoites in their saliva. “That is the vaccine,” says the researcher. What is special is that it is a living vaccine. It contains highly infectious plas-modium falciparum sporozoites which are injected directly into the vein. “Tüchmi” is the name of this unusual method of inoculation, Francine Ntoumi explains. The expression was coined by a colleague at the Institute for Tropical Medicine at Tübingen University Hospi-tal with whom she has cooperated closely since 2000. The “TÜ” stands for Tübingen, the “chmi” for Controlled Human Malarial Infection.

One might say that Francine Ntoumi and the team of researchers in Tübingen simulate the bite of a malaria mosquito, but under con-trolled conditions.

A group of Dutch researchers had previously conducted experi-ments in which humans were shut in an insectarium with mosquitoes so that they became infected. The experiment was also controlled at intervals of four weeks so that the immune system had time to respond.

A CERTAIN NUMBER OF MOSQUITO BITES LEAD TO IMMUNITY.

RESISTANT TO INSECTICIDESThe insecticides used to fight malaria are becoming less effective: between 2010 and 2013, many of the countries affected recorded resistance to insecticides amongst malaria mosquitoes.

Source: based on the WHO World Malaria Report 2014

Resistance detected to one insecticide class Resistance to two or more classes No resistance detected No data available No ongoing malaria transmission


PROFESSOR DR FRANCINE NTOUMI is one of

the pioneers of infection research in Africa. Born in

Congo, she has worked in France, Gabon, the

Netherlands, Germany, Tanzania and Congo. In her

role as a scientific manager she campaigns for

better research conditions in Africa. The molecular

biologist has cooperated with the University of

Tübingen since 2000, partly as a Georg Forster

Research Fellow. In 2014, she was granted the

Humboldt Foundation’s Georg Forster Research

Award enabling her to continue the collaboration.

She now commutes between Tübingen and

Brazza ville, Congo, where she is a senior lecturer at

Marien Ngouabi University and the President of the

Congolese Foundation for Medical Research.

“So we know it works. That a certain number of mosquito bites lead to immunity,” says Ntoumi. “But we can’t shut up the whole of humanity in an insectarium!” So she had sporozoites isolated from the mosqui-toes’ salivary glands and discovered how many of them she had to inject to induce immunity. Three inoculations every four weeks are required. At the same time, the patients are given the anti-malarial Chloroquine so that the infection cannot break out. The first clinical trials endorse the approach: the new malaria vaccine really did protect 100 percent of participants from infection. If the follow-up trials are just as prom-ising, the vaccine could be on the market by 2018.

Ntoumi now wants to raise money for the vaccine in the Republic of the Congo in order to carry out further trials and later to market it. She has already gained the support of the oil company Total and is busy convincing the directors of the Congolese airline Compagnie Afri caine d’Aviation that a vaccine is better than the mosquito nets they currently distribute for advertising purposes. There are many young people in Congo, according to Francine Ntoumi, whom she could train to become researchers. At the same time, with its wealth of resources and sus-tained economic growth, there is money in the African country. One just has to bring it all together.


ANNUAL MEETING

Federal Foreign Minister Steinmeier and Federal President Gauck meet Humboldtians

HUMBOLDT NETWORK

Foundation surveys Humboldtians

More than 600 Humboldtians from almost 80 countries gathered in Berlin in June for the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation’s Annual Meeting. Federal President Gauck welcomed the Humboldtians and their families in the gar-den of Schloss Bellevue.

The event was opened with an address by the Federal Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier. In his speech, the Minister announced that Germany would be giving more support, in the form of fellowships for example, to researchers from all over the world who are under threat for political reasons. The Humboldt Foundation was “pre-destined to play a leading role in this,” he emphasised. Across the globe, 51 million people are fleeing from war, violence, persecution and repression, he noted. “Academ-ics, students and intellectuals, in particular, who are brave

and open enough to express their views, find themselves in the firing line,” said Steinmeier, the first German for-eign minister to attend a Humboldt Foundation Annual Meeting. At the same time, it is these dedicated people who are particularly crucial for building and developing their countries, he added.

Federal President Gauck presented the 2015 Philipp Franz von Siebold Award for outstanding services to foster ing exchange between Germany and Japan to the Japanese legal historian Kazuhiro Takii. The Humboldt Alumni Award was granted to the Humboldtians Oluyemi Akinloye, Nige-ria, Alexandra Antoniouk, Ukraine, Judith Giordan, USA, Przemyslaw Marciniak, Poland, and Milcho Kirilov Tsvet-kov, Bulgaria, for their work to promote academic and cul-tural relations between Germany and their own countries.

The Humboldt Foundation has undertaken a comprehensive survey of its network. A total of 6,951 Humboldtians answered the Founda-tion’s questions online or during individual interviews.

The results confirm that the Humboldt Network is of great professional and personal use to its members who feel a close bond with

fellow Humboldtians and with Germany. There is still room for improvement in increas-ing awareness of alumni sponsorship options and in encouraging members from highly-developed industrialised countries to benefit from them.

Countries with few funding opportunities make the greatest use of the measures offered

by the Humboldt Foundation. Another find-ing: as time elapses after the stay in Germany, individual activity in the network declines.

The Alexander von Humboldt Foundation is now working on various measures and new tools to make the network even more attrac-tive.

NEWS

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Foreign Minister Frank-Walter Steinmeier and Helmut Schwarz, President of the Humboldt Foundation (left); President Joachim Gauck during the reception at Schloss Bellevue (right)


The Humboldt Foundation’s magazine receives two prizes at once: in the Best of Corporate Publishing Competition, run by the Forum of Corporate Publishing (FCP), and the FOX AWARDS, the communication sector’s effi-ciency competition, Humboldt Kosmos was honoured for the very first time.

The FCP competition is the largest of its kind in Europe. In 2015, a total of 729 corpo-rate publications were submitted, which were judged by a jury on criteria such as journalis-tic quality, overall concept and cross-media

convergence. Kosmos won the Best of Corpo-rate Publishing Silver Award in the category for non-profit organisations, associations and institutions.

The FOX AWARDS recognise efficient communication solutions according to crite-ria such as concept, content, and addressing target groups. This was where Kosmos was able to score amongst the 312 media submitted. Together with six other magazines, it received its second silver award in the category for asso-ciations, organisations and foundations.

In May, Federal Research Minister Johanna Wanka and Helmut Schwarz, President of the Humboldt Foun dation, conferred Germany’s most valuable research award, the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship, on top research-ers from abroad.

The literary scholar Elisabeth Décultot, the mathe-matician Harald Helfgott, the museologist Sharon Macdonald, the specialist in Ancient Near Eastern His-tory Karen Radner and the molecular geneticist Marja

Timmermans will conduct research as Alexander von Humboldt Professors in Halle, Göttingen, Berlin, Munich and Tübingen.

The award, which is financed by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research, is worth up to five million euros per researcher. Every year, the Humboldt Foundation bestows the Alexander von Humboldt Professorship on up to ten world-leading researchers from all disciplines working abroad.

Humboldt Professor-ship Award Ceremony:

Marja Timmermans, Harald Helfgott,

Sharon Macdonald, Helmut Schwarz, President of the

Humboldt Foundation, Elisabeth Décultot and Karen Radner (from left to right)

AWARD CEREMONY

Humboldt Professorship brings inter national research stars to Germany

CORPORATE PUBLISHING AWARDS

Humboldt Kosmos successful


The most fascinating thing about my work is that it never stops surprising me. And when that happens, I know I’ve done a good job: asking questions to which I don’t know the answers. I’m responsible for the evaluations the Humboldt Foundation carries out to test its effectiveness and improve its offers. As part of these activities we conduct surveys in our network. Usually, we contract out to external partners, but my small team does some of the surveys itself. If you are a Humboldtian perhaps you have already participated in one of our online surveys or we might have met during an interview.

I find these conversations incredibly inspiring. I don’t just get feed-back on the Foundation’s work but insights into the research and lives of Humboldtians from diverse countries and disciplines as well. In order to avoid getting the answers one expects or stop interviewees from trying

to do you a favour (Humboldtians are very polite people!), there are a few tricks you can use – such as asking as many open questions as pos-sible. Academics like that because they can give differentiated, longer answers. When it comes to evaluating them, this certainly means a lot more work, but also more complex findings. We learn a great deal more, as we did in the survey on the Humboldt Professorship, which brings internationally coveted researchers to Germany. Attractive research conditions are, of course, a major reason for moving to a German uni-versity. But we were amazed just how important family considerations are too. They were originally just a minor part of the survey. But as the mother of two children I can identify completely, and I’m grateful that the Humboldt Foundation takes this issue seriously with regard to its staff as well. Recorded by GEORG SCHOLL

SURPRISE ME!Who actually does what at Humboldt headquarters? Who are the people behind the scenes making

sure that everything runs smoothly? This page is devoted to the colleagues at the Humboldt Foundation, their lives at work and beyond. TODAY: DR MEIKE OLBRECHT.

THE FACES OF THE FOUNDATION

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