Interview with Anna-Lena Menn, transfer professor at H-BRS

H-BRS: Mrs Menn, what is a transfer professorship?

Anna-Lena Menn: If you research the term "transfer professorship" online, which I did again the other day, you only get a few hits. The special thing about the transfer professorship is that it promotes the transfer of research to citizens, to other scientists, to companies, but also to teaching. Above all, it is about breaking up the trinity of teaching, research and transfer. At least that's how I see it. My professorship started on 1 October 2024 and will initially run until the end of January 2026, i.e. three semesters. And if my 10-minute internet search is correct, we are the first university in NRW to do this.

H-BRS: Why did you apply for the transfer professorship?

Anna-Lena Menn: Because of the idea of networking. I'm very good at approaching people and bringing them together. During my scientific work at TU Braunschweig, I worked as a research field coordinator and ran workshops.

H-BRS: What specific tasks will you be taking on?

Anna-Lena Menn: My tasks will primarily relate to sustainable technology research. So, how are sustainable products designed? Is everything we make really sustainable?

My focus here is on building networks, but initially within NRW. So that expert knowledge can be pooled for industry and for the NRW Doctoral College (PK NRW). That is important to me. In this way, those who take on the doctorate can better fulfil the admission requirements, for example by publishing jointly with other researchers.

For membership, i.e. to be granted the right to award doctorates and to be able to award your own doctorates, you have to have a certain amount of external funds, a certain number of publications and supervised doctorates, for example. And that's where I want to get involved and say: let's do research and publish together and perhaps also supervise cross-university master's theses and master's projects.

H-BRS: That means you would support professors at H-BRS to be recognised in the doctoral college?

Anna-Lena Menn: Yes, exactly. I'm not a member of PK NRW, but in order for us to be able to implement the HAW's new right to award doctorates, it's helpful if we work together to find people who can participate so that our professors can fulfil the requirements.

H-BRS: Have you thought about formats for how researchers could be better networked?

Anna-Lena Menn: I have resolved not to simply invite, say, 80 people who are sitting in a room or lecture theatre and only five are left at the end.I want to approach universities specifically. And then get to know as many researchers as possible and see what they are doing. I can also draw attention to a topic, bundle topics so that projects can be created for which external funds can in turn be acquired.

H-BRS: You mentioned the sustainability reference at the beginning. How do you embed this in your teaching?

Anna-Lena Menn: Yes, the aim of education for sustainable development is to teach students to think holistically and to take all of the Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) into account right from the start. If you take a mobile phone, for example, you should be aware that there are people who also have to get the rare earths out of the ground somehow. I would like to embed such systemic approaches in my teaching. For example, I have a subject called modelling and simulation and I already do a section on systems engineering and systems thinking. I am interested in systems engineering as a holistic product development method in which the product to be developed is considered in the system with the environment from the outset and the interactions within the system are taken into account.

H-BRS: What does sustainability mean to you personally?

Anna-Lena Menn: For me, it is the awareness that there are resources and that you have to be careful with them.The other day, I was thinking about how we always had running water, food and education during the coronavirus pandemic. This means that our SDGs were less affected even during the pandemic than they are in many other countries, even without a pandemic. For me, the social benefits need to be prioritised more.

Interview and photo: Angelika Fiedler (H-BRS)