Martin Grötschel

After he was elected secretary-general of the International Mathematical Union (IMU), the media labelled Martin Grötschel the “chief” and even “general” of mathematics. But Grötschel doesn’t care all that much about such appellations. “For me,” he says, “it was recognition enough that mathematics-related activities in German became even more important after I was elected and the IMU Secretariat moved from Princeton to Berlin.”

Groundbreaking Work in Combinatorial Optimization

The mathematician has already won several awards, including the Leibniz Prize, Germany’s most prestigious science-related award, and the John von Neumann Theory Prize of the Institute for Operations Research and the Management Sciences (INFORMS) for his groundbreaking work in combinatorial optimization. In 2008, Berlin’s Senate bestowed the Berlin Science Award on Grötschel. In addition, Martin Grötschel has received a number of honorary doctorates and is a member of the Berlin-Brandenburg Acamedy of Sciences and Humanities, the German Academy of Sciences “Leopoldina,” the German Academy of Science and Engineering (acatech) and the National Academy of Engineering in the United States.

In addition to holding a professorship at the Technische Universität Berlin, the mathematician is also vice president of the Zuse Institute Berlin (ZIB) and a founding member of the DFG Research Center MATHEON, where he was the director for six years.

A Much-Sought-After Collaboration Partner for Businesses

Martin Grötschel has been involved in the fields of optimization and operations research for decades. He and his team are much-sought-after collaboration partners whether it has to do with the integrated planning of telecommunications networks, the control of pipelines, the optimization of the deployment of vehicles and their operators in transport operations and logistics, or optimal production planning. Companies from around the world use software developed by his working group whenever they plan public transportation networks. Grötschel and his colleagues are also in charge of overseeing the network of the DFN-Verein, the communications network that provides Internet access to all scientific establishments in Germany and is adjusted every two months to meet actual changing needs.

Optimal Conditions in Berlin

In Berlin, Martin Grötschel found the optimal conditions for realizing his vision of forging a link between mathematics and today’s key technologies. “Mathematics is one of the most important production factors of our time,” he says, “and its significance when it comes to technological progress is always growing.” Likewise, he is convinced that Berlin will also assume an excellent position in this field. He has made it his task to convince society that mathematics is the basic element in “significantly increasing efficiency in many areas, reducing expenditures, conserving resources and making products safer.” And it just might be that, in this endeavor, Martin Grötschel is a bit of a “general of mathematics.”

You will also find Martin Grötschel in the Who's Who Berlin: Capital of Science