Press release: German Research Foundation fosters research training groups at the University of Göttingen

Nr. 110/2015 - 13.05.2015

Two new colleges established, one extended - cooperation with the German Primate Center

(Pug) From 1 October 2015, the German Research Foundation (DFG) will be supporting two new research training groups at Göttingen University. The University will be establishing one of the new colleges in cooperation with the German Primate Center (DPZ). In addition, the DFG has extended the funding for an existing Research Training Group (RTG) for another funding period.

The new RTG "Understanding Social Relations" will be endowed with around 3.7 million euros over the next four and a half years. This support will make possible the structured training of 24 PhD students. Prof. Dr. Julia Fischer is the RTG spokesperson and does research within a cross-disciplinary professorship at Göttingen University and the German Primate Center. The researchers will study the social behaviour of monkeys and humans. Both live in complex societies and must maintain and control social relationships. In this context, it can still be further elucidated as to how much they differ in their applied mental abilities.

Behaviourists, psychologists, linguists and psycholinguists from the Universities of Göttingen and Hildesheim and the German Primate Center will be involved. "The special thing about our postgraduate programme is the interdisciplinary approach, which will provide students with broad insight into the issue," says Prof. Fischer. The doctoral students will explore how infants, adults and several species of monkeys process social cues such as gestures and sounds, how they understand, track and maintain social relationships and coordinate behaviour with their peers.

The new RTG "Pattern Recognition in Complex Data: Interaction between Statistics, Optimisation and Inverse Problems" will be located at the University of Göttingen’s Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science; the total budget is around 3.6 million euros. The efficient extraction of essential information from complex data is a key challenge in the applied sciences. The steadily growing capacity to capture and store large volumes of data requires new methodological approaches in order to extract the embedded information.

"One of our main goals is the research-oriented training of young scientists in applied mathematics at the intersection of numerics, optimisation, statistics and applied probability theory," explains Prof. Dr. Gerlind Plonka-Hoch, spokeswoman for the Institute for Computational and Applied Mathematics. The focus is on the development of new mathematical concepts for efficient reconstruction and classification of relevant structures in signal and image data as well as their applications in biology, medicine and engineering.

The RTG "Transformation of Global Agri-Food Systems - Global Food", at the interface between agricultural economics and economics, was extended by a further funding period of four and a half years. The researchers are researching globalisation in the food sector. Eating habits and consumer preferences are changing worldwide. Value chains are increasingly being integrated internationally, large supermarket chains also play an increasingly important role in developing countries. This RTG will examine the impacts of these trends for farmers, agribusiness and consumers. Special emphasis will be placed on poverty and food issues in developing countries.

Around 40 doctoral students have taken part in the RTG to date, of which 15 have already completed their dissertation. The currently approved second phase has a funding volume of around 4.6 million euros. "In the second phase, we will continue our research and also derive policy recommendations," explains Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim of the Department of Agricultural Economics and Rural Development and RTG spokesman. "An important question is, for example, how the ‘double problem’ of under- and over-nutrition can be reduced by better governance."

Contact:
Prof. Dr. Julia Fischer
German Primate Center
Department of Cognitive Ethology
Phone +49 (0)551/ 3851-375
E-mail: jfischer@dpz.eu
Website: www.dpz.eu/en/unit/cognitive-ethology/about-us.html

Prof. Dr. Gerlind Plonka-Hoch
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Faculty of Mathematics and Computer Science:
Phone +49 (0)551 39-22115 / -4502
E-mail: plonka@math.uni-goettingen.de
Website: num.math.uni-goettingen.de/plonka/index-en.shtml

Prof. Dr. Matin Qaim
Georg-August-Universität Göttingen
Faculty of Agricultural Sciences
Phone +49 (0)551/ 39-4806
E-Mail: mqaim@uni-goettingen.de
Website: www.uni-goettingen.de/en/73908.html