On October 1, the management of the Institute changed. Prof. Stefano Passerini takes over the position of Director and the former Director Prof. Maximilian Fichtner becomes his deputy. According to the statutes, a rotation is scheduled every three years. Three years ago, Prof. Fichtner replaced the founding director Prof. Horst Hahn.
“In the few years since its inception, HIU has reached an outstanding level in Germany, as demonstrated by the top ranking within the Helmholtz Association and the leading role that it plays in the recently granted Post-Lib project funded within the national Excellence Initiative, as well as world-wide, as testified by the great number of high-quality scientific publications, the participation in several international bi- and multilateral research project and the establishment of Memorandum of Understanding with top-level laboratories such as the Argonne National Laboratory in the USA”, said Stefano Passerini. The establishment of two Young Investigator Research Groups further shows the vitality of the Institute towards the future development. As a result of such vivid development, the Institute has already reached his full occupancy in terms of available laboratory and office space, in spite of its rather recent inauguration in late 2014. Thus, I hope that the HIU founding partners (KIT, UniUlm, DLR and ZSW) will soon enable the Institute to further expand in the near future, he explained.
Stefano Passerini has been a professor at the HIU since January 2014 and heads the largest research group at the institute. He has been working on the development of materials and systems for electrochemical energy storage for 30 years. His research focuses on the basic understanding and development of materials for lithium batteries, such as ionic liquids, polymer electrolytes and electrode materials. Passerini is the co-author of over 500 publications and for the third year in a row one of the most cited researchers in his field. In addition, several newly developed materials have already been patented.
“I would like to thank you for the great collaboration that has been so fruitful in recent years and let me express my sincere wishes that we keep on going on this road of success,” said Fichtner during the handover. During his term, he approved the Cluster of Excellence “Energy Storage Beyond Lithium – New Storage Concepts for a Sustainable Future”, in which he is spokesman and in which HIU participates via the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT). At the same time, he played a key role in founding CELEST, the Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage, one of the world’s largest research alliances for energy storage, which he also heads as director.