Election as Vice-President of German Rectors’ Conference

During its General Assembly on 16 November, the German Rectors’ Conference elected its Vice-Presidents. In future, the President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena, Prof. Walter Rosenthal, will be responsible for the priority areas research, academic career paths and transfer on the 10-member Executive Board. The two-year term of office will begin on 1 December 2021.

“I would like to thank my colleagues for the trust they have placed in me by electing me,” said Rosenthal after the election. “Now we must work together to further improve conditions for research, from fundamental research to production, and thus create the best environment for German universities to hold their own in the face of international competition. This includes the question of how we can make the academic career system in Germany more transparent.”

Researcher and science manager

Walter Rosenthal has been President of Friedrich Schiller University Jena since 2014 and Chair of the Thuringian State Presidents’ Conference since 2018. He studied Medicine at the University of Giessen and the Royal Free Hospital School of Medicine, in London. He obtained his PhD in Giessen in 1983. After research work in Heidelberg, Houston (Texas), and Berlin, he gained his post-doctoral qualification (Habilitation) in Pharmacology from the Free University of Berlin in 1990. As a recipient of a Heisenberg grant and Visiting Professor, Rosenthal then did research at Baylor College of Medicine in Houston (Texas). From 1993 to 1998, he was Professor of Pharmacology and Toxicology at the University of Giessen. In 1996, he became Director of the Leibniz Institute for Molecular Pharmacology in Berlin. From 1998 to 2003, he held a professorship at the Free University of Berlin and subsequently a professorship at the Charité university hospital in Berlin. In January 2009, he became chair of the Foundation Executive Board and Scientific Director of the Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine (MDC) in Berlin-Buch, which is a major research facility of the Helmholtz Association.

Prof. Walter Rosenthal has written numerous papers on cellular signal transduction. He is a member of the German National Academy of Sciences Leopoldina and the Senate of the Leibniz Association, among other institutions. He has also been Dean of the Max Planck Schools since 2017.

About the German Rectors’ Conference

The German Rectors’ Conference is an association of state and state-recognised universities in Germany. It currently has 268 member universities. The Conference is the collective voice of the universities vis-à-vis politics and the public. It deals with topics such as teaching and studies, research, innovation and transfer, continuing academic education, internationalisation and the issues of self-administration and governance in higher education.