Questions and Answers

Bielefeld Marketing GmbH opened the Bielefeld Science Office in 2008 to act as a network organisation and further develop the interfaces between town and gown. The Science Office coordinates Campus marketing on behalf of the four Campus cooperative partners.

The person to contact is Dr. Annette Klinkert: Annette.Klinkert(at)bielefeld-marketing.de

German universities and colleges are in a state of flux. Nearly the entire higher education system is affected: research, course structure, financing, organisation and legal status. Competition is getting keener both nationally and also, in particular, internationally, with the result that the competitive pressure on every single university and college location is increasing perceptibly.

Strategic research decisions like establishing Max Planck or Fraunhofer Institutes or the ‘excellence initiative’ launched by the federal government and the federal states play a big part in determining the quality and attractiveness of a university town. The factors in such decisions are additional money, on the one hand, and reputation, on the other. Both are crucial to the further development and competitiveness of an academic location.

From the point of view of Germany as an industrial location it is important to invest in research, education and training. The federal and state ‘excellence initiative’ is also a political signal that locations rated excellent will qualify for a high level of support.

The gap between university towns is thus set to widen in future.

The players in Bielefeld will therefore need to take a carefully considered decision whether to invest in Bielefeld as a location for research and teaching in future. Otherwise, other towns will benefit when it comes to handing out public funding.

The players in Bielefeld include Bielefeld City Council, the University of Bielefeld, Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and BLB. For everyone involved – that means these organisations, their members and the people of Bielefeld – there are good reasons for investing consistently in research, education and training in Bielefeld.

Science and research are key pillars of the city’s development and a decisive image factor for the city of Bielefeld. Creating an ideal environment for research, teaching and study will help to put us in the lead over our national and global competitors.

The planned investment volume of 1 billion euros by 2025 offers the opportunity to turn Campus Bielefeld into one of the most modern science centres anywhere in Germany.

Enhancing the quality and attractiveness of research and teaching creates a number of advantages:

• Closer networking with regional organisations 
• Research and development cooperation with enterprises nationally 
• Permanent knowledge transfer to local enterprises 
• Growth due to foreign students
• Attracting scientists from abroad, especially to graduate schools, to encourage the rising generation of scientists.

The most effective way to promote these advantages is in terms of a quality location, grouped together on a spatially coherent university site, Campus Bielefeld, where the complete range of University, University of Applied Sciences, non-university research and university research and development facilities is available.

In addition, there is an attractive living and service infrastructure for students as well as for visiting scientists.

In terms of perspective, these developments mark a quantum leap for Bielefeld as a university town and offer an opportunity to develop a momentum of its own that will perceptibly enhance Bielefeld’s overall image. At the same time, these developments will open up additional attractive job opportunities in Bielefeld.

The general aim of the planned project, both on the present main university site (Campus South), the replacement building and canteen on Universitätsstraße and the complete renovation of the main university building and on the extension site at Campus North, was to significantly enhance the quality and attractiveness of the research and teaching environment.

The University of Bielefeld and Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences need that quality boost if they are to survive as a higher education centre in the face of increasingly tough competition.

Significantly enhancing the quality and attractiveness of the research and teaching environment means finding answers to the following questions:

How can we make the courses and facilities offered by Bielefeld’s universities and colleges sufficiently attractive to induce students from elsewhere in Germany or from abroad to choose to come here?

How can we make the conditions for science, research and teaching in Bielefeld sufficiently attractive to induce scientists from Germany and other countries to choose to come here?

How can we ensure that cooperation in research and teaching contributes to steadily improving transfers between the academic institutions and industry?

So how can we achieve the overall aim of making the quality and attractiveness of working and living conditions in Bielefeld a trade mark that will have a knock-on effect?

The aim of this complex procedure was to produce top-class designs for the sensitive integration of university buildings on the Campus North extension site and then to select the best of them. The point is that investments of this magnitude require the best solution.

The cooperative competitive process was characterised by consistent openness to the people of Bielefeld and it was accompanied by a series of public events. The competitive process paved the way for the zoning process (land utilisation plan, development plan).

The Campus Bielefeld development is a significant project initiated by the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, represented by Bau- und Liegenschaftsbetrieb NRW. The plan is to bring the various parts of Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, which have until now been spread throughout the city of Bielefeld, together on a central site at Campus North, immediately adjacent to the present main University site (Campus South).

As well as that, there will be new research institutes and research and development centres for the University and the University of Applied Sciences. The first stage is Forschungsbau Interaktive Intelligente Systeme, which will be completed in 2012.

The area available on the Campus North extension site is about 14 hectares. The following uses are planned:

• About 31,500 m2 main effective area for the new Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences building, which will be ready for occupancy in 2013.
• Approx. 20,000 main effective area for research institutes run by the University or other institutions 
• The first stage is Forschungsbau Interaktive Intelligente Systeme, which will be completed in 2012. The construction cost is in the region of 32 million euros. The four-storey building will have a main effective area of about 5,300 m2. 
• Approx. 14,000 m2 for other University research and development centres
• From 6,000 to 8,000 m2 main effective area for the two universities’ spin-offs and start-ups.

That makes a gross floor space of approximately 140,000 square metres.

Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences is the second-biggest of Bielefeld’s higher education institutions, with some 7,500 students and 1,500 new students arriving each year. About 80 per cent of the students come from East Westphalia-Lippe. The research and development activities carried on in various fields mainly take place in cooperation with enterprises, regional businesses in particular.

Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences is currently spread over seven different sites: five in Bielefeld itself, one in Minden and one in Gütersloh. None of the sites in Bielefeld was originally designed to serve the needs of a university. The buildings currently in use are in need of renovation. By today’s standards none of the properties meets the requirements of a modern study, teaching and research environment.

The scattered structure creates considerable drawbacks for teaching and research: Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences lacks a uniform public image. Interdisciplinary research and teaching projects are impeded. It is not possible to provide scientists and students with standardised services. Appreciably higher costs are incurred due to facilities like canteens having to be duplicated.

Bringing everything together at one site, with the new building, will remove all these drawbacks and their consequences.

Concentrating everything at one site on the new Campus North will open up totally new development prospects for cooperative links. That comprises external cooperative undertakings, on the one hand, and collaboration within the University of Applied Sciences, on the other.

Another advantage is the possibility of establishing new cooperative links between the different University of Applied Sciences departments and the University of Bielefeld faculties. For instance, cooperation in areas such as ‘media informatics and design’, ‘biotechnology’ or ‘health'.

With the development of Campus Bielefeld the universities have already created a new strategic framework for academic cooperation in scientific and technical research fields. Professor Dr. Beate Rennen-Allhoff, Principal of Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences, and Professor Dr.-Ing. Gerhard Sagerer, Rector of the University of Bielefeld, signed a framework agreement on research partnerships on 2 November 2010.

The aim is to initiate and carry out joint research and development projects. On the one hand, it is hoped that this will create synergies and pool the participants’ potential to best effect. On the other hand, the intention is for scientific events like seminars, symposia or workshops to be planned and held.

Another important area of cooperation involves assisting the rising generation of scientists by arranging for joint supervision of doctoral students in the context of a cooperative doctorate process. The agreement also provides for shared use and provision of scientific equipment and staff.

In parallel to these projects Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences will also be able to increase its attractiveness for non-university cooperative partners and develop its regional and national networking. Meanwhile, the University of Bielefeld can intensify its regional integration in cooperation with the University of Applied Sciences.

There are currently just over 4,000 car parking spaces available on the main University site, more than half of them on ‘parking decks’. These areas are not available for redevelopment, for a number of reasons: firstly, they are needed for people working on the main University site, and secondly, these parking spaces fulfil an important park-and-ride function for the city of Bielefeld at weekends and in the evenings, particularly in view of the good transport links via the suburban railway.

Building underground car parks with the same capacity is not an option, due to cost considerations. Furthermore, if that land were to be built over for the new uses, even more underground parking spaces would be needed than are available at present.

So, for the reasons mentioned, it was just not possible to locate the planned development concept for Bielefeld University of Applied Sciences and the University research and development institutes on the north, the north-west or the south-east of the main University site. There was nowhere on the present University site to build the new University of Applied Sciences.

The start of construction of the replacement building on Universitätsstraße has taken a lot of parking spaces out of use. Once the building complex is completed, 900 parking spaces will be available in a new underground car park.

Forschungsbau Interaktive Intelligente Systeme is the first step in bringing research institutes to Campus North.

In its recommendation on promoting research buildings at universities and colleges the Science Council approved the University of Bielefeld’s application to build a new Interactive Intelligent Systems research building and awarded it First Place. This decision in mid-2010 is further proof of the outstanding scientific quality of the internationally unique competence and research centre for Interactive Intelligent Systems at the University of Bielefeld.

Construction of the new research building, costing 32 million euros, is due to start in January 2011, with a scheduled completion date for the 5,300 square metre space (main effective area) of April 2012. Users will be able to start moving into their new working space in the summer of 2012.

A total of 32 research teams from six disciplines – Informatics, Biology, Linguistics, Psychology, Sports Science and Physics – will work on the Interactive Intelligent Systems research programme. 17 of these teams will enjoy an ultra-modern working environment in the new Forschungsbau Interaktive Intelligente Systeme. Of the total cost of 32 million euros, large scientific equipment alone accounts for 2.5 million euros.

The heart of the research building will be an interdisciplinary central laboratory, where cognitive interaction processes will be explored using the very latest instruments in a hitherto undreamt-of resolution.