Secretary General Dr. Wilhelm Krull

Since 1996, Dr. Wilhelm Krull has been running the Volkswagen Foundation – following his studies in German, philosophy, education and politics, an appointment as a DAAD lecturer at the University of Oxford, and leading positions at the Wissenschaftsrat (German Science Council) and at the headquarters of the Max-Planck-Gesellschaft (Max Planck Society). Besides his professional activities in science policy as well as in the promotion and funding of research, he was and still is a member of numerous national, foreign and international committees.  

At present he is the Chairman of the Board of the Foundation Georg-August-Universität Göttingen, a member of the Governing Board of the Central European University in Budapest, of the Scientific Advisory Commission of the State of Lower Saxony and of the Board of Regents of the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen, the Max Planck Institute for Psychiatry in Munich, the Max Planck Institute for Gravitational Physics in Potsdam and Hanover, a member of the Board of Regents of the Fraunhofer Institute of Systems Technology and Innovation Research in Karlsruhe.

In 2004/05, he was member of a commission of experts for the evaluation of the Science Foundation Ireland. In 2005, he chaired the founding committee for the new Academy of the Sciences in Hamburg. Together with a commission of leading personalities in the German higher education system, in the same year he formulated a framework for a future-oriented higher education and research system in Germany.

Wilhelm Krull devotes himself to the furtherance of foundations on the national and international level.
From 2003 to 2005, he was chairman of the Hague Club, an association of some 25 major European Foundations and from June 2006 to May 2008 he chaired the Governing Council of the European Foundation Centre. In June 2008 Wilhelm Krull was elected Chairman of the Bundesverband Deutscher Stiftungen (Association of German Foundations).

In the recent past, Dr. Krull received the following distinctions: In 2001, he was honored with the Leibniz-Medal of the Akademy of Sciences and Literature Mainz, in 2007, he received the swedish Order of the Polar Star, and in 2009, he was appointed Honorary Senator of the University of Konstanz.

Selected speeches and publications

in 2010:
February 11, 2010
"Time and Space for Creativity" (pdf, 100 KB), Research Europe

February 2010
"Research Policies for Europe" (pdf, 69 KB), Effect Magazine

in 2009:
October 29, 2009
"Small Things Matter. Research Foundations in a Multilateral World" (pdf, 141 KB), University of Oxford, Great Britain

July 22, 2009
"Foundations are a new power in Europe" (pdf, 150 KB), published online in: Europe’s World

in 2007:
November 14, 2007
"A Foundation in Europe: Partnerships and Means of Action" (pdf, 51 KB), International Conference on “A Vision of ‘Europe of the Future’”, marking the ten-year anniversary of the Evens-Foundation, November 13 - 14, Paris

March 26, 2007
"Crisis – Competition – Creativity. Changes in German and European Higher Education, Research, and Technological Development" (pdf, 136 KB), Berkeley University

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