Science management & policy

Alongside my research, I hold a Master of Public Administration (MPA) in science management and am engaged in questions of research funding, evaluation, and policy. I am available for reviewing assignments, advisory boards, and panels.

My engagement in this area has grown naturally out of my research. Leading international collaborations has taught me that scientific excellence often requires crossing boundaries — between disciplines, institutions, and countries. The initiatives I have helped establish are built on this conviction: an international Max Planck Center connecting partners in Germany, the US, and Taiwan creates a long-term institutional framework for cooperation that no national context could provide alone, while privately funded fellowship and internship programmes bring students from around the world to Munich — fostering early-career mobility, capacity building, and durable people-to-people ties between scientific communities. This is also what draws me to the concept of Science Diplomacy: international scientific cooperation both enables science of a quality no country could achieve by itself, and builds trust between societies — something I consider especially valuable in a changing geopolitical landscape. To these questions I bring the dual perspective of an active researcher and a trained science manager, together with first-hand experience of exchanges between science and policymaking at the national and European level.

Background

since 2025: One of three Co-Directors of the Max Planck–IAS–NTU Center for Particle Physics, Cosmology and Geometry.
since 2025: Member of the Board of the Association of ERC Grantees.
since 2025: Member of the Advisory Board of the Max Planck Academy.
2025: Attended the INGSA Europe Inaugural Conference (International Network for Governmental Science Advice).
since 2024: Coordinating PI of an ERC Synergy Grant — hands-on experience in leading a large international consortium (see Funding).
2024: Attended the World Science Forum, Budapest.
2021–2025: Member of the Scientific Advisory Board of the Franco-German University (DFH/UFA).
2021–2023: Master of Public Administration (MPA) in science management (part-time), German University of Administrative Sciences, Speyer. Master's thesis on the concept of scientific excellence, with a publication (in German): Förderung wissenschaftlicher Exzellenz.
2022: Internship at the office of MEP Dr. Christian Ehler, European Parliament, Brussels — insight into EU research-policy making (Horizon Europe, ERC).
since 2018: Director at the Max Planck Institute for Physics — institutional leadership, hiring, and mentoring of junior scientists.

Writing & talks on science policy

Förderung wissenschaftlicher Exzellenz

Article on fostering scientific excellence and the European Research Council (in German), Wissenschaftsmanagement.
Plenary talk at "Was erzählen uns die Reformen der letzten zwanzig Jahre über die Zukunft des Wissenschaftssystems? Ein Dialog zwischen Forschung und Praxis"

Deutsche Universität für Verwaltungswissenschaften Speyer, October 15, 2022.
Crossing interdisciplinary and institutional boundaries

Talk at the Opening ceremony of the Max Planck–IAS–NTU Center, Taipei, September 2025.

What I can offer

Reviewing and panel service for research funders.
Contributing to advisory boards and committees.
A dual perspective: active researcher and trained science manager — particularly on excellence initiatives, international cooperation, and funding instruments.

Contact: henn AT mpp.mpg.de · LinkedIn