Prof. Dr. Andrea Kienle, head of the MKW research department, is our first guest at our new building “Ölmühle”

Although some of the office furniture is still missing and not all of the moving boxes have been unpacked, Prof Kienle, Head of the Research Department at the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia (MKW.NRW) was visibly impressed by our new FiW office spaces in the Ölmühle near RWTH Campus Melaten. We are very grateful to the MKW that we received a one-time increase in institutional funding in the year of the re-location in order to be able to cope with the re-location to privately rented premises, which had become necessary due to the RWTH's own space requirements in the building in which the FiW was housed.

The main topics discussed with Prof. Kienle were the importance of research and research transfer for the future viability of the water sector, cooperation with MKW and other ministries, in particular the Ministry of the Environment as part of the Johannes-Rau-Forschungsgemeinschaft and the upcoming JRF members' meeting, which will be held in FiW's conference room for the first time in November - the Ölmühle-building gives us completely new opportunities here. We have also reported that we took an unusual approach: we used crowd-funding to raise contributions from members, partners and alumni of FiW to furnish social rooms, a library and a new co-working space. Even though not everything is fully equipped yet, Prof. Kienle was impressed to see the FiW team fully productive again just three days after the re-location.