Freie Universität Welcomes Preservation and Concentration of Julius Kühn Institute in Berlin
Executive Vice President Schäfer-Korting: Consolidation of Plant Research
№ 082/2013 from Apr 17, 2013
Freie Universität Berlin welcomes the decision made today by the Budget Committee of the German Bundestag to retain the location of Dahlem for the Julius Kühn Institute in addition to merging it with the location in Kleinmachnow. The executive vice president, Prof. Dr. Monika Schäfer-Korting, emphasized that the university could thus continue its cooperation with the Julius Kühn Institute and in fact intensify its scientific exchange with the facility. "This will reinforce the location of Dahlem as one of Germany’s leading centers for plant research." The institute’s location in the vicinity of Freie Universität’s Botanical Garden is ideal for this collaboration. The Julius Kühn Institute (JKI) is the Federal Research Center for Cultivated Plants in Germany and an independent federal authority within the portfolio of the German Federal Ministry of Food, Agriculture, and Consumer Protection.
Besides its main locations in Dahlem and Kleinmachnow, the Julius Kühn Institute also has 13 other institutes. In 1898 a laboratory for testing new plant varieties and cultivation techniques was already set up the property that at that time was part of Domäne Dahlem. This approximately seven-acre test field still exists today and is the largest such field in Germany that is still being used as a test field in the middle of a large urban area. In 1905 the buildings on Königin-Luise-Straße were first put to use, meaning that Dahlem's location as a center for plant research is more than one hundred years old.
"I am very happy about the decision of the Budget Committee in favor of the Julius Kühn Institute in Dahlem. It was an important decision for anchoring research in Dahlem and at Freie Universität," emphasized Karl-Georg Wellmann, a CDU member of the Bundestag from the district of Steglitz-Zehlendorf. In recent years Wellmann had campaigned intensively for retaining the Julius Kühn Institute in Dahlem and for its close cooperation with Freie Universität.