CSMC
CSMCCentre for the Study of Manuscript Cultures
Two-day stay in HamburgERC President Visits the CSMC
23 June 2022
Photo: Karsten Helmholz
Katharina Fegebank (second from left), Maria Leptin (centre) and Hauke Heekeren (second from right) listening to Claudia Colini (right) and Sebastian Bosch (left) explaining the Mobile Lab.
As part of her visit to Universität Hamburg, Maria Leptin, President of the European Research Council (ERC), came to the CSMC on 22 June. In particular, the current ERC grant recipients at the Centre introduced themselves and their work.
Maria Leptin is a molecular biologist and, since November 2021, President of the ERC. At the invitation of Katharina Fegebank, Hamburg’s Senator for Science, Research, Equality, and Districts, she visited various locations in Hamburg during a two-day stay. Her visit to Universität Hamburg took place at the premises of the CSMC. Hauke Heekeren, President of Universität Hamburg, was also present and briefly introduced the guest to some key facts about the university.
In her statement, Maria Leptin emphasised the importance of fundamental research. As we have seen during the pandemic - the only reason why vaccines were avaiable so quickly was that the underlying research had been done years in advance - the value of scientific work does not depend solely on its immediate applicability, she stressed. She followed with special interest the presentations of two ERC grant recipients at CSMC: Emilio Bonfiglio, standing in for Jost Gippert, highlighted the project ‚DeLiCaTe‘,which studies the development of literacy in the southern Caucasus. Yoav Meyrav gave an overview of his project 'HEPMASITE', which starts in October and deals with the question of how a multitude of often unknown Jewish scholars decisively shaped the development of Jewish philosophy in the Middle Ages with their manuscript production.
Following an informal exchange, the President concluded her stay at the CSMC with a visit to its Mobile Lab. Other stops during her stay in Hamburg were DESY, Universitätsklinikum Eppendorf (UKE), and the Airbus plant.
