Media information from the Thuringian Ministry for Economic Affairs, Science and Digital Society
from June 21, 2023
Jena to receive another Helmholtz Institute
HIPOLE is researching sustainable polymer materials / Tiefensee: Thuringia will become a leading battery research location / Federal and state governments ensure long-term funding
The Jena science hub will gain a new research institution: the "Helmholtz Institute for Polymers in Energy Applications" (HIPOLE). The Senate of the Helmholtz Association of German Research Centres (HGF) approved the institute at its meeting yesterday, following a joint application from the Center for Energy and Environmental Chemistry (CEEC) at Friedrich Schiller University Jena and the Helmholtz Centre Berlin for Materials and Energy (HZB). The establishment of this new Helmholtz Institute will expand the presence of the Helmholtz Association, Germany's largest scientific organization, in Thuringia. The decision followed a multi-stage, competitive selection process conducted by the Helmholtz Association. HIPOLE will develop materials and storage technologies essential for the energy transition. Starting in 2028, it will receive up to €5.5 million in annual funding from the federal government (90 percent) and the state of Thuringia (10 percent). During the start-up phase, the state will also subsidize the costs for the institute's buildings and equipment with up to 14 million euros.
“Our goal is to develop Thuringia into a leading location for battery research and production. We will map the entire value chain in Thuringia, from basic and applied research to the further establishment of production companies and start-ups, all the way to battery recycling. The research institution demonstrates ways to produce stationary storage systems without rare earths and hazardous substances. This is a breakthrough for achieving ambitious climate goals and should convince the skeptics,” said Thuringia’s Science Minister Wolfgang Tiefensee.
The significant efforts undertaken by the Free State of Thuringia in establishing the CEEC since 2014 have contributed significantly to the founding of HIPOLE. "With over €23 million in state research funding, considerable expertise in energy storage has been developed here. This is now paying off. The new Helmholtz facility will create a battery research center with a reach far beyond Jena, while simultaneously being deeply rooted in the region's strong scientific environment and entrepreneurial ecosystem," Tiefensee continued. Including the financing of building and equipment costs, the federal government, the state, and scientific foundations have supported the CEEC with a total of more than €60 million in recent years.
Even before the establishment of the new HIPOLE institute, the two applicants, CEEC and HZB, were already working closely together. At the end of 2019, the two institutions founded a "Joint Lab for Polymers for Energy Storage and Conversion"; since 2020, collaborations have been ongoing for individual projects. The specific goal of the newly founded institute is to research polymer materials for new energy technologies. To achieve this, HIPOLE's research approach combines polymer chemistry, materials science, state-of-the-art analytical methods, and artificial intelligence with world-leading expertise in polymer-based energy storage and photovoltaics, as well as sustainable chemistry.
The founding director and spokesperson of HIPOLE will be the head of the CEEC, Prof. Dr. Ulrich S. Schubert. HIPOLE will be housed in the newly constructed "CEEC Jena Application Center," which is funded by state and ERDF grants and is expected to be ready for occupancy in autumn 2023; further space is available in the Jena Technology and Innovation Park.
“Achieving climate neutrality requires a surge of innovation in the development of new, high-performance storage technologies and the decarbonization of many energy-intensive processes,” Tiefensee explains, describing the expectations associated with the establishment of the new institute in Jena. “Polymer materials play a particularly important role here, which gives HIPOLE’s research a pioneering character.” At the same time, he sees the establishment of the new institute as significantly strengthening Jena as a research location overall – especially because the presence of the Helmholtz Association in Thuringia is being expanded once again. In addition to the Helmholtz Institute Jena (HI Jena), an external branch of the GSI Helmholtz Centre for Heavy Ion Research in Darmstadt, the Institute for Data Science of the German Aerospace Center (DLR), which is also part of the Helmholtz Association, is also located here.