News from FIZ Karlsruhe

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Posted in: , on 21. Jul. 2004 - 18:18

Positive result of evaluation by the Leibniz Association

FIZ Karlsruhe offers excellent service to science and industry

Berlin, Bonn, Karlsruhe, July 2004 - The senate of the Leibniz Association

has confirmed the high quality and nationwide importance of FIZ Karlsruhe

and recommended to the German Federal Government and the German Federal States to continue subsidizing it in the future. According to the

evaluators, being the most important provider of sci-tech information in the

German-speaking countries, FIZ Karlsruhe offers science and industry an

excellent service and plays an important part in European and worldwide

business, especially together with its STN partners.

In regular intervals, the senate of the Leibniz Association carries out evaluations of its 80 non-academic research and service institutions. Its

results and recommendations help the commission of the Government and the Federal States decide, whether the prerequisites for further public funding are met.

According to the experts, FIZ Karlsruhe at present holds a strong position

on the international market for specialist information. To ensure its competitiveness in the long run, however, FIZ Karlsruhe and the other

publicly funded information service institutions in Germany ought to co-operate more closely in the future. The evaluators recommend to bundle

and network resources and services. FIZ Karlsruhe should be the driving

force and coordinator in this process, which, according to the evaluation

report, is on the long run aimed at forming a European competence center for

sci-tech information.

FIZ Karlsruhe's Management sees the positive result of the evaluation as a

confirmation of its new policy which is directed towards a new positioning

of FIZ Karlsruhe: "We have already been actively promoting this process for

several months, giving it top priority, and are ready to assume a leading

part. As a first step, we will establish a close co-operation with FIZ

Chemie Berlin, based on a joint strategy. To this end, we have already

signed a Letter of Intent in June", states CEO Sabine Brünger-Weilandt.

Andreas Barth, Director Online-Service at FIZ Karlsruhe, adds: "Strategic

co-operations, for example in multidisciplinary networks, are a central

target of our new orientation. 20 years of success with our largest business

area - the sci-tech information network STN International - clearly show

the chances offered by strategic alliances. In consequence, we will actively

build up new partnerships, particularly with academic and scientific

institutions."

The evaluators have explicitly welcomed the partnership of FIZ Karlsruhe and

Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (MPG) established in order to develop an Open Access platform for a multidisciplinary research organization.

With regard to its new strategic orientation, FIZ Karlsruhe's management

profits much from the evaluators' recommendations. A sustainably competitive

competence center for sci-tech information, capable of meeting the various

challenges in an international environment, can only be realized through

strategic alliances between the German information service institutions.

The statement of the senate of the Leibniz Association is available at:

http://www.wgl.de/extern/evaluierung/index6.html

Press contact:

FIZ Karlsruhe

Rüdiger Mack

Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1

76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen, Germany

Phone: +49-7247/808-513, Fax: +49-7247/808-136

E-mail: Ruediger.Mack@fiz-karlsruhe.de

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A non-profit scientific service institution, FIZ Karlsruhe produces and

markets scientific and technical information services in print and electronic form worldwide. In co-operation with national and international institutions, FIZ Karlsruhe produces databases in the fields of energy, nuclear research and technology, crystallography, polymer technology, mathematics, computer science and physics, and provides a search service for R&D in corporations and institutions. FIZ Karlsruhe also operates STN International in Europe. STN International (The Scientific & Technical Information Network) is one of the world's leading online services offering access to bibliographic, factual and

full-text databases in science and technology.

At present, STN's comprehensive product range encompasses more than 220

databases with approx. 400 million documents from all fields of science and

technology, among them the world's largest and most important patent files.

STN International is jointly operated by FIZ Karlsruhe, Germany; Chemical

Abstracts Service (CAS), Columbus, OH, USA; and the Japan Science and

Technology Agency (JST), Tokyo.

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