My very special thanks go to PTB’s extremely committed Crisis Management Team, as well as to all of you for your discipline, for your understanding, and your sensible and considerate behavior. In the last 12 months, we put a lot of effort into internal communication. This included updating our intranet page, letters from the Presidential Board of PTB, intense communication between the Presidential Board and the division heads, as well as setting up a dedicated corona hotline. It was possible to reach the hotline at all times, and one of the roles it took on was that of PTB’s “inhouse health authority” – it correspondingly traced the contacts in each individual case of COVID-19.

Despite – and perhaps even because of – COVID-19 and the reduced amount of traveling, we found the time to think fundamentally about the future of metrology and to set the course for the important issues of the future. There are many often “disruptive” developments in society, the economy, and not least in metrology that are no longer just situated within a single, narrowly restricted subject area or are limited to individual measurands. In the future, a large number of sensors and measuring procedures will rather be linked in autonomous vehicles, in the supply networks in the “city of the future”, and in “customized medicine”. Hundreds or even thousands of units of measuring data will be the basis for decisions that are prepared using artificial intelligence procedures. All of this means it is necessary to characterize and understand things metrologically, and it is also necessary to think holistically. With this in mind, we elaborated a proposal for an Innovation Center for Systems Metrology (IZSM) together with PTB’s Advisory Board (Kuratorium). In November 2020, this proposal was submitted to the Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Energy (BMWi), backed by a recommendation from the whole of the Kuratorium. This groundbreaking concept is going to help PTB tackle future metrological challenges in its role as one of the world leaders in metrology. In collaboration with PTB, the IZSM will contribute to considerably reducing the development cycles for disruptive technologies, strengthening the innovation capabilities of Germany, and increasing confidence throughout the world in innovative networked products that are “made in Germany”. More than 130 years after PTB’s predecessor, the PTR (Imperial Physical Technical Institute), was founded (a predecessor which crucially helped to make the words “made in Germany” synonymous with “quality”), PTB is taking another courageous step towards shaping the future!

Issues such as digitalization, renewable energies, “green” hydrogen, quantum technologies, medical physics, and biochemistry are going to play a crucial role in this future. We have addressed these issues with our steering groups and have pooled all the activities PTB is undertaking on these topics. With this preparatory work as a basis, we and our partners from the region launched the “Quantum Valley Lower Saxony” in record time. Together we want to realize a quantum computer within the next five years, basing our research on technology that has been developed at PTB and with funding amounting to € 25 million from the state of Lower Saxony and the Volkswagen Foundation. Along with the further development of our Quantum Technology Center, we are at the forefront of such future technology!

In addition, all of our cross-sectional issues were also prominently positioned in the German government’s economic stimulus package, so that we were well prepared and able to immediately put forward detailed proposals to support this stimulus package. A substantial total of approx. € 90 million has been estimated as the amount needed to realize this stimulus package. Whether our proposals will be accepted remains to be seen. The additional funds for the above-named issues would certainly signify a great chance – not only for the further development of Germany, but also for the further development of PTB.

Just how much our ideas, our potential, and our proposals are heard, specifically in the fields of politics and the economy, is also a question of communication. This is why we sought advice on this from an external agency last year. They helped PTB to fine-tune its mission, its values and its core messages in order to identify more exactly who PTB’s key stakeholders are and to discuss possible communication measures. Apart from the Presidential Board and the heads of the organizational units, it was especially PTB’s staff, all of you, who actively took part in this process. This consisted of a large number of interviews, several in-house workshops, and two events centering on PTB’s mission which were held in both Braunschweig and Berlin. A big thanks goes to all of those who contributed to these events so much.

PTB’s mission focuses on three values in particular: precision, objectivity, and a passion for measurement. We want to continue to fill these three values with life in the coming year – and we will unfortunately still be doing this under “corona conditions” for quite some time. We will, however, also overcome these challenges together. Hopefully we will be able to put important concepts for the future into practice with funds from the economic stimulus package, and perhaps we will be able to take the first steps towards setting up the IZSM. We can expect 2021 to be an exciting year which is rich in opportunity!

Prof. Dr. Joachim Ullrich
Präsident der PTB