iL-CURRENT
October 31, 2023
Uli Lemmer is
New iL Managing Director
He is already a household name for some colleagues at InnovationLab, but now it's official: Uli Lemmer, Professor and Head of the Optoelectronics Department at the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT), has been appointed Scientific Managing Director of iL, succeeding his predecessor Professor Wolfgang Kowalsky (Technische Universität Braunschweig), who stepped down on April 1, 2023. Together with the operational Managing Director Dr. Michael Kröger, Lemmer will form the top management team with immediate effect.
This urgently needed to be celebrated - and so our iL staff met with numerous university representatives on the fourth floor of the building at Speyerer Straße 4 to celebrate the new team's debut in a relaxed atmosphere (with wine, beer, pizza and some home-made treats). "Uli comes to us with a lot of advance praise - and it's just going to be good," said Michael Kröger, giving the "new guy", who is not really new, a particularly warm welcome.
Michael Kröger: "Re-establishing the research and transfer platform"
"At iL, we will expand and restructure the research and transfer platform and aim to attract additional users and tenants. With the clean room and the S2 laboratories, the offices and a service facility, we offer an attractive infrastructure and ultimately a functioning operating site for our partners," said Kröger about the near, hopeful future once the conversion work has been completed. Uli Lemmer spoke about how he would like to approach his role as Scientific Managing Director. "I'm really looking forward to taking over from Wolfgang Kowalsky and getting things moving," reported Lemmer, "I'm trying to set new trends by networking in the academic world. I see myself as someone who will build bridges."
The 59-year-old, who grew up in Gummersbach in the Upper Berg region of Germany, is virtually predestined for this. On the one hand, his academic career provides an adequate foundation: he studied physics at the Rheinisch-Westfälische Technische Hochschule Aachen (RWTH), completed his doctorate at the Philipps University of Marburg, held a post-doctoral position at the University of California in Santa Barbara and was group leader in the organic electronics department at the University of Munich. In 2002, Lemmer was appointed Professor in the Faculty of Electrical Engineering and Information Technology and Director of the Light Technology Institute in Karlsruhe. Since then, he has been a KIT protagonist and renowned researcher with numerous publications. On the other hand, it is a great advantage that Lemmer has been associated with iL for 15 years and was already involved in the application process. Lemmer knows the history, but also the various stages and orientations with their respective priorities inside out.
Uli Lemmer: "Opportunity to work more closely with the universities"
"I have been attending iL board meetings as a KIT representative for many years and I have always been scientifically connected to iL through Gerardo Hernandez-Sosa's working group," Lemmer described his impressions, "technologically, they were super successful here. And it is of course fortunate that in Michael we have someone with a background in real science and real business. Now it's an opportunity to work much more closely with the universities, as is the case with the joint Cluster of Excellence "3D Matter Made to Order "3D Matter Made to Order (3DMM2O) between Heidelberg University and KIT. The key question is how to deal with scientific ideas in order to translate them into applications and products. iL has already shown that it can do just that."
In the areas of energy transition and life science technologies in particular, new and exciting topics are literally on the horizon. The aim here is to drive forward networking more closely and to inspire various industrial partners in addition to the universities. Uli Lemmer encouraged the team to persevere in developing iL's work as a competence center, problem solver and accelerator with a wide range of expertise, perhaps in a few years' time we will be able to look back on a portfolio of start-ups and spin-offs. "I also see us as a scouting department for KIT and Heidelberg University," said Lemmer, explaining his commitment.
There was only one point where Uli Lemmer had to dampen any expectations. He would remain a professor at KIT; it was a part-time job here in Heidelberg. "It's clear that I won't have a very prominent operational role," said Lemmer, adjusting the coordinates of his iL activities.
Grounding through visits to the KSC stadium
Anyone who knows Lemmer better, however, knows that he is able to open doors with persuasion and passion. The man who once played handball (what else) and soccer (there's also VfL there) in Gummersbach is considered a team player and a person generally interested in sport. "Since I've been in Karlsruhe, I've been going to KSC more or less regularly. It does me a lot of good to ground myself and is a pleasant contrast to the field of research and science," Lemmer reveals with a mischievous smile. All in all, that makes 21 years of joys and sorrows at the Wildparkstadion ...
At this point, the iL team can only say: Welcome, Uli! We are looking forward to the efficient teamwork and the precisely executed double passes.
Joachim Klaehn
Head of Communications
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