Institute for Chemical Technology (AdW)

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The Institute for Chemical Technology (IcT) was a non-university research institute of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR (AdW). It was located in the Berlin district of Berlin-Adlershof and was created in 1980 from a division of the Central Institute for Organic Chemistry (ZIOC), also located in Adlershof . The director of the institute from its founding until 1990 was Gerhard Keil , member of the research council of the GDR and head of the academy's chemistry department. He was followed in July 1990 by Siegfried Nowak , who had headed the ZIOC until 1987 and from May 1990 was Vice President of the Academy and Chairman of the AdW Research Association.

In 1989 the IcT was one of the smaller chemical-physical institutes of the AdW with 158 employees. The main focus of the institute's work was chemical research for the development and advancement of technologies with high economic importance for the German Democratic Republic (GDR). This mainly affected coal and petrochemicals , especially processes for the use of lignite and crude oil . The research profile of the institute was thus almost exclusively geared towards application-oriented work and technology development to solve specific problems in industry in the GDR and only to a very limited extent on basic research . The international level of awareness and the scientific reputation of the IcT were therefore low compared to other AdW institutes.

After the political turning point in the GDR and German reunification , the institute's management initially suggested staying in the Academy's research community, for which other AdW institutions were also striving to reorganize. The takeover by the Fraunhofer-Gesellschaft (FhG), later suggested by the IcT committees , was rejected by the FhG. An evaluation by the Science Council carried out in 1990/1991 turned out negative for qualitative and structural reasons, so that the continuation of the institute was not recommended in the opinion of the Science Council. In the period that followed, an IcT working group was integrated into the Federal Institute for Materials Research and Testing . In addition, some employees were taken on in the chemical centers founded at the Adlershof site as successor institutions to the chemical AdW central institutes and in the funding of the scientist integration program , a small part founded one under the direction of Siegfried Nowak with the Institute for Technical Chemistry and Environmental Protection privately organized institution.

literature

  • Hans-Georg Wolf: Organizational fates in the German unification process: The development paths of the institutes of the Academy of Sciences of the GDR. Volume 27 of the publications of the Max Planck Institute for Social Research in Cologne. Campus Verlag, Frankfurt am Main 1996, ISBN 3-593-35523-X ; especially Section 5.6.3: Institute for Chemical Technology (IcT), Berlin-Adlershof. , Pp. 304-310, in chapter 5: The institutes of the AdW research area Chemistry in Transformation.