Federal President Frank-Walter Steinmeier has appointed four new members to the German Council of Science as of February 1, 2026 – nevertheless, laboratory medicine is still not represented on the body. On the joint proposal of the German Research Foundation, the Max Planck Society, the German Rectors’ Conference, the Helmholtz Association, the Fraunhofer Society and the Leibniz Association, the following have been appointed for a three-year term of office:

• Dr.-Ing. Bahman Azarhoushang, Professor of Manufacturing Engineering and Head of the KSF Institute – Institute for Advanced Manufacturing at Furtwangen University
• Dr. Hanna Hottenrott, Professor of Innovation Economics at the TUM School of Management at the Technical University of Munich
• Dr. Eva-Maria Kieninger, Professor of German and European Private Law and Private International Law at the University of Würzburg

At the suggestion of the Federal Government and the state governments, the following was appointed:

• Andrea Frank, Deputy Secretary General of the Stifterverband

The following were appointed for a further three-year term of office:

• Dr. Jakob Edler, Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Systems and Innovation Research ISI and Professor of Innovation Policy and Strategy at the Manchester Institute of Innovation Research
• Dr. Christine Falk, Professor of Transplantation Immunology at the Institute of Transplantation Immunology at the Hannover Medical School
• Dr. Stefan Kampmann, Management Consultant, Knetzgau
• Dr. Wolfgang Lehner, Professor of Databases and Director of the Institute of System Architecture at the Technical University of Dresden
• Dr. Ursula Rao, Director of the Department of Social and Cultural Anthropology, Politics and Governance at the Max Planck Institute for Social Anthropology in Halle and Honorary Professor of Social and Cultural Anthropology at the University of Leipzig and the Martin Luther University Halle-Wittenberg
• Dr. Harald Schwager, Member of the Supervisory Board of K+S Aktiengesellschaft
• Dr. Christine Silberhorn, Professor of Integrated Quantum Optics at the University of Paderborn

Eliminated this year are:

• Dr. Nina Dethloff, LL.M., Professor of Law and Director of the Institute for German, European and International Family Law at the University of Bonn
• Dr. Christian Facchi, Research Professor for Embedded and Networked Systems at the Technical University of Ingolstadt and Head of the Graduate Center
• Dr.-Ing. Frank Heinricht
• Dr. Thomas S. Spengler, Professor of Production and Logistics at the Technical University of Braunschweig

Further information on the members of the German Council of Science and Humanities is available here .

Editor: X-Press Journalistenbüro GbR

Gender Notice. The personal designations used in this text always refer equally to female, male and diverse persons. Double/triple naming and gendered designations are used for better readability. ected.