New faces on the Volkswagen Foundation's Board of Trustees
Lower Saxony's Science Minister Falko Mohrs takes over as Chairman of the Board of Trustees of the Volkswagen Foundation, Germany's largest private science funding organisation. The federal cabinet and the state government of Lower Saxony have appointed a total of three new members to the foundation's highest decision-making body.
On September 1, 2024, there was a rotational change in the Board of Trustees. In addition to Lower Saxony's Minister for Science and Culture, Falko Mohrs, as Chairman, Prof Dr Jan Plefka, Professor of Theoretical Physics (Quantum Fields & Strings) at Humboldt-Universität zu Berlin, and Thomas Schmall-von Westerholt, Member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG and responsible for Technology, were newly appointed.
Björn Thümler, former Minister of Science and Culture of Lower Saxony and the previous Chairman of the Board of Trustees, as well as Prof Dr Thomas Carell (Professor of Organic Chemistry, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich) and Hiltrud Werner (former member of the Board of Management of Volkswagen AG, Integrity and Legal Affairs) stepped down at the end of their terms of office.
The Deputy Chairman of the Board of Trustees, Prof Dr Hans Michael Heinig (Chair for Public Law and Ecclesiastical Law, Georg August University of Göttingen), Prof Dr Claudia Eckert (Managing Director of the Fraunhofer Institute for Applied and Integrated Security (AISEC); Chair of IT Security, Technical University of Munich) and Elke Hannack (Vice President of the German Confederation of Trade Unions) were reappointed for a second term of office.
All members of the 14-member Board of Trustees not mentioned above are in their regular term of office. They are appointed for five years; a second term of office per person is possible.