As one of 39 Senate members, Prof. Zimmermann will serve on the DFG's central scientific committee for a three-year term beginning in 2023. She thus replaces Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ellen Ivers-Tiffée, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) as the representative of the scientific discipline of Materials Science and Engineering. As a review board member, she has already been actively involved in the scientific discourse in recent years and is looking forward to her new position. She emphasizes, "It is a great honor and recognition for me to be able to actively participate in this prestigious committee of the Deutsche Forschungsgemeinschaft as a senator in the future." Since 2021, Zimmermann is also serving in a dual leadership role with her colleague Prof. Gerhard Schneider as the presidential team for the Deutsche Gesellschaft für Materialkunde e.V. (DGM).

The DFG Annual Assembly has now elected the scientist to another leading position within the scientific community. She is particularly concerned to strengthen the importance and visibility of the field she represents, and in doing so to advocate for an appropriate balance between research priorities in materials science and materials engineering. The challenges of NFDI activities on future proposal guidelines and review processes are important to Prof. Zimmermann as well.

The German Research Foundation (DFG)

Founded in 1951 as a spin-off from the Notgemeinschaft der Deutschen Wissenschaften (Emergency Association of German Sciences), the DFG's mission is to support knowledge-oriented research and the transfer of scientific findings. The self-governing organization for the promotion of science in Germany supports knowledge-oriented research of the highest quality. The DFG's tasks include funding research projects, designing competitive spaces and managing procedures for reviewing, evaluating, selecting and deciding on research funding proposals. In this way, the community shapes the framework conditions and standards of scientific work. Also on the DFG's agenda is the transfer of knowledge and the promotion of international cooperation.

The following five members were newly elected to the DFG Senate:

• Agricultural Sciences: Prof. Dr. Georg Guggenberger, University Hannover
• Informatics: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Mira Mezini, TU Darmstadt
• Materials science and engineering: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Martina Zimmermann, TU Dresden
• Legal Studies: Prof. Dr. Heike Krieger, FU Berlin
• Sociology/Political Science: Prof. Dr. Ursula Mense-Petermann, Bielefeld University

Elected for another term of office:

• Theoretical Medicine: Prof. Dr. Petra Dersch, University of Münster

Retiring from the Senate are:

• Agricultural Sciences: Prof. Dr. Chris-Carolin Schön, Technical University of Munich
• Informatics: Prof. Dr. Hans-Peter Seidel, Max Planck Institute for Informatics (MPI-INF), Saarbrücken
• Materials science and engineering: Prof. Dr.-Ing. Ellen Ivers-Tiffée, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT)
• Sociology/Political Science: Prof. Dr. Thomas Risse, FU Berlin
• "Science and Business": Dr. Ulrich Simon, Carl Zeiss AG, Jena