Dr. Lena Josch, Ph.D. in Engineering – Advisor for National Research Affairs

Effective March 1, Dr.-Ing. Lena Josch has joined the team at the Office for Research and Early Career Development as an advisor for national research affairs. She succeeds Dr. Isabel Sattler, who has taken on new responsibilities as an advisor to the president.

Lena Josch, an engineer, first studied mathematics at Clausthal University of Technology and subsequently earned her Ph.D. in 2010 in the field of materials science (plastics engineering), focusing on the long-term behavior of components made of glass-fiber-reinforced plastic. From 2003 to 2011, while working on her dissertation, Josch served as a research assistant at Clausthal University of Technology. In 2011, she gained her first experience in research funding at the Jülich Project Management Agency.

In 2012, she was appointed to her first position as a research assistant at the University of Technology and Applied Sciences (TUK) in Klausthal as part of her postdoctoral fellowship in the Department of Mechanical and Process Engineering. She then moved to Mannheim from 2014 to 2021, where Josch served as deputy director of the Department of Research Strategy and Research Funding at the Central Institute for Mental Health. Her responsibilities as a research officer included, in particular, research funding, research performance evaluation, and research strategy, as well as tenure-track hiring procedures and technology transfer.

At the same time, starting in 2015, she furthered her education through a three-year part-time graduate program in science management, which she successfully completed with a “Master of Public Administration in Science Management” from the German University of Administrative Sciences Speyer.

With the position advertised at TUK in the Office for Research and Young Scholar Support, she is taking the next step in her career to further specialize in the long term, particularly in the areas of research funding and structural development. Here, she coordinates and oversees the Research Initiative of the Federal State of Rhineland-Palatinate and assists with securing third-party funding from national funding agencies.

“In doing so, I always see myself as a service provider for the researchers,” emphasizes the new staff member. “I hope that, from my perspective—which is often outside their field—I can provide them with new insights for presenting their research ideas and strategies to funding agencies,” she summarizes.

The TUK employee finds a balance to her work by hiking with her husband and three children in the Palatinate Forest or simply by enjoying family life. She also stays fit through Irish dance at Unisport.