Professor Dr. Friedrich Götze is decorated in the Netherlands

Last Wednesday (27.08.2014) Professor Dr. Friedrich Götze from Bielefeld University was awarded the Order of Orange-Nassau in the Dutch city of Eindhoven. The mathematician received this honour from the King of the Netherlands for his commitment to building up the European research institute ‘Eurandom’ at the Eindhoven University of Technology. The main focus of work at the institute is on research in the stochastic sciences and their applications. In his laudation, Rob van Gijzel, the Mayor of Eindhoven, praised Götze’s contribution to transnational research in the stochastic sciences as a member of the Institute’s Scientific Council.

Rob van Gijzel praised Friedrich Götze as a great scientist, a true European, and a devoted friend of the Netherlands. One of his services was his engagement in getting the German Research Foundation (DFG) to provide funding for a Eurandom programme for post-docs. Shortly after it was founded in 1998, Eurandom launched a programme to bring together outstanding post-docs from all over Europe to each join in the research at Eindhoven for two years. Even today, these post-docs are still linked together in a network of 150 researchers who cooperate across national borders. Recently, Götze launched the idea of setting up a new programme for young researchers in the stochastic sciences, said van Gijzel.

After the end of the programme, Götze helped to set up a German–Dutch research group in which Eurandom cooperated with a series of German universities. The research group was funded by the DFG and the NWO (Netherlands Organization for Scientific Research). One consequence of this was that the DFG priority programme 1590: Probabilistic Structures in Evolution coordinated by Bielefeld University was able to set up a German–Dutch research cooperation on mathematical biology. Götze was decorated yesterday at a workshop in this priority programme.

The Order of Orange-Nassau is awarded in the name of the King of the Netherlands to individuals who have made special contributions to society. It was founded on 4 April 1892 and is one of two civil orders of merit in the Netherlands.

Professor Dr. Friedrich Götze is one of the leading stochastic scientists in Germany. The 63-year-old scientist has been engaged in research and teaching at Bielefeld University’s Faculty of Mathematics since 1984. His research focuses on probability theory, mathematical statistics, and number theory.