President Ihne: An overwhelming success!

The university was founded based on government funds worth DM 515 million. After the parliament and parts of the government had moved from Bonn to Berlin, H-BRS became the catalyst for comprehensive structural change.  To mark its 20^th anniversary, on 19 June 2015, the university celebrated a festive and at the same time colourful day along with Svenja Schulze, Science Minister of the German State of North Rhine-Westphalia, and numerous other guests from academia, business, politics and society.

University President Hartmut Ihne said in a retrospective view of the institution’s early stages: “Bonn-Rhein-Sieg University’s founding has been an overwhelming success. The university, which was founded in 1995, was intended to advance structural change from a power centre of federal politics to a science and innovation region as well as a centre for international cooperation. This is exactly what we have now achieved.”

Ihne added that there was a solid basis for setting ambitious objectives for the future. “We will further develop – among other things, with the aid of a science campus where research, development and application are in close proximity to each other, thus ensuring improved transfer of scientific expertise to professional practice. The Centre for Applied Research (ZAF), which will be established at Rheinbach Campus from the autumn as part of the university’s expansion, is an important step along this road.”

Svenja Schulze, the North-Rhine-Westphalian Minister of Science, called our university ‘an excellent site for tuition and research’. She also said that the university’s international focus was ‘outstanding’ in the literal sense, “The excellent ratings from the Centre for University Development and the German Rectors’ Conference (HRK) confirm that the university is pursuing a successful internationalisation strategy.” The minister particularly emphasised H-BRS’ partnerships with emerging and developing countries, “which are assuming an increasingly important part in a global world.”

During their speeches, Minister Schulze and University President Ihne were greeted by spectators who were in very high spirits because they had just seen the premier of an animated film on the university’s historical development.

Time was also devoted to a panel discussion on structural change in the region: the talk was held between Mayors Klaus Schumacher (Sankt Augustin) and Stefan Raetz (Rheinbach), Lord Mayor Jürgen Nimptsch (Bonn) and District Chief Executive Sebastian Schuster (Rhein-Sieg District).

After the ceremony, the guests were given the opportunity to learn more about our university in Hochschulstraße. An exhibition on the university’s history was on display; interviews with people involved with the university over the past 20 years were being shown on repeated play on two screens along with a film on the university’s timeline, and details of selected projects from all departments were being presented as part of a comprehensive research show.

There is no such thing as a university without students!

Lectures had been cancelled to enable students to join in the anniversary celebrations. Student councils and the Student Parliament had actively assisted in organising the summer party, which started at 14:00 and carried on until late at night. Numerous activities and music acts were being offered. For ‘TheBIGlive’, this involved going back to the university’s roots: the band had been set up to mark the university’s 10^th anniversary.  It had performed for the first time during the very first summer party, which had been held almost 10 years to the day earlier. At that time, the band was still called ‘Aktionstheke’.

While joyful celebrations were being held on-campus, moderator Gert Scobel from the German TV channel 3sat and three experts discussed the difficulties involved in the quest for happiness through work-life balance at the ‘Responsibility Forum’ (Forum Verantwortung), which was organised by the University and District Library. “This doesn’t work at all,” says author Heinrich Wefing in his eponymous book ‘Geht alles gar nicht’. Author Kristine Bilkau does not express such a negative view, while philosopher Natalie Knapp provides advice on how to achieve happiness – or is it not rather the case that everybody, at least in large part, is the architect of their own happiness?

Many anniversary guests had even taken the H-BRS Express tram, which is running on Route 66, to get to Sankt Augustin. Since the beginning of this year the university express, which is organised in collaboration with Stadtwerke Bonn, has been drawing attention to our university’s anniversary under the motto ‘Travelling sustainably on the road to the future’.