Modern lab workplaces with excellent equipment support the potential research options in anthropology / New building highly energy efficient
11.06.2013
The expansion and modernization of the campus of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz (JGU) is moving forward. After almost two years of construction, the Institute of Anthropology has now moved into its new building with its 1,650 square meters accommodating laboratories, meeting and seminar rooms, a computer lab, and a microscopy room for the Mainz University Medical Center. The new building was financed under the federal state's construction program for 2005-2015 as one of the comprehensive measures planned to modernize the campus of Mainz University. The EUR 10 million in overall construction costs are being met by the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate. Another EUR 762,000 was spent on equipping the rooms. "Through this new construction, Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz is sending out several important signals at once: the highly modern infrastructure created here will make possible cutting-edge research in the life sciences. The dedication of the new Anthropology building marks the start of that larger process. It also represents a clear message to the young women and men who have opted to study in Mainz: in times of rising numbers of students, the university is already implementing the measures necessary to get ahead of the curve in ensuring good conditions for studying over the long term. What we are creating here is a campus of the future, one with a global perspective. I am more than gratified that the federal state has been able contribute towards this," stated Vera Reiß, Secretary of State for Science.
The new building for the Institute of Anthropology is a compact, two-story structure in the immediate vicinity of the Institute of Special Botany and the Botanic Garden. The building is now the academic home of students in the M.Sc., B.Sc., and B.Ed. Biology degree programs and of two professors and their associated academic and non-academic staff. "The new Institute of Anthropology building will provide on the one hand a significant improvement to the learning conditions of studying, which we consider a major plus. We want to provide our students with the kind of optimal training that will serve as the proper foundation for their professional careers," explained Prof. Dr. Georg Krausch, President of Johannes Gutenberg University Mainz. "At the same time, this new building and its cutting-edge lab workplaces open up research opportunities in the field of anthropology, a discipline that in recent years has time and again produced spectacular research results to international acclaim."
Anthropology is one of JGU’s research areas that draws the most external support. In the past ten years, some EUR 5.5 million in financing were successfully obtained, with a major proportion of that coming through EU and standard procedure funds. The securing of third-party funding demonstrates the impressing dynamism of the field at Mainz University and attests to the success of the institute’s strategy of linking classical comparative approaches to anthropology with cutting-edge experimental methodologies.
Mainz is one of the few locations in Germany still capable of supporting anthropological research on a broad basis. "The highly innovative orientation of our individual working groups, taken together with the ongoing targeting of classical anthropological aspects, makes the Institute of Anthropology at Mainz University an institution that stacks up well in national and international comparisons," claimed Professor Hans Zischler, Dean of the Faculty of Biology. "The new building provides us with the spatial platform required to further promote this and to firmly establish the field of anthropology as part of the academic landscape of the future."
The construction of the new building ultimately involved 13 different architectural and engineering firms as well as 70 medium-sized contractors. The entire building has been designed to be barrier-free. "During construction, we put a special priority on achieving top energy efficiency. The new building meets the stringent German 'passive house' guidelines and consumes only 15 kilowatt hours of energy per square meter of heated space annually. In addition, we have installed a photovoltaic solar panel system to support sustainable use of the building," explained Holger Basten, Managing Director of the Rhineland-Palatinate Estate and Construction Management Agency (LBB). Through its adherence to the passive house standard and use of solar power, this new building actually undercuts the specifications of the Energy Savings Act of 2009 by 30 percent.
The Faculty of Biology is also to receive further support in the near future: as a result of a EUR 50 million donation from the Boehringer Ingelheim Foundation for the Life Sciences, the university and the federal state government are building another new building for research into the modern life sciences that will eventually serve as the home to significant parts of the Faculty of Biology from 2018. "We will thus have workplaces adequate to meet the needs of the new professors in Biology who are to be appointed over the next few years and who will require excellently equipped, modern laboratory facilities and scientific equipment," said the President.