The Scientific Director of the HZDR, Prof. Sebastian M. Schmidt, adds: “Since its founding in 2019, CASUS has become a magnet for the brightest minds from around the world. The numerous awards and grants, for example from the European Research Council, that CASUS has already received in this short time are impressive proof of this. With the new location, we are now raising the research conditions to a more suitable level. In doing so, we are further expanding the attractiveness of CASUS and the visibility of the Lusatia and Lower Silesia science region in the heart of Europe.”

Saxony’s Minister of Science Sebastian Gemkow also welcomes the decision of the HZDR Supervisory Board: “This is good news for the international team at CASUS, which urgently needs the new premises in order to continue its positive scientific development. The topics being researched here using completely new approaches will give us an even better understanding in the future of why highly complex systems such as human health or the climate work and how they work. The insights gained here have enormous potential for innovation and the development of new technologies to solve problems in a wide variety of areas. This requires the best possible conditions, which will be put in place at the new location.”

CASUS is currently spread across rented locations in Görlitz. Since 2019, offices have been located at Untermarkt in Görlitz. Once these premises were completely occupied, additional space was added in 2023 one kilometer away in the former canteen of “Werk 1” of a former railcar construction company. These interim solutions offer space for 120 employees. At the consolidated location, CASUS can expand to accommodate up to 140 employees. People from more than 20 nations work together at the center. Joint research projects are currently underway with partners from Görlitz (Senckenberg Society for Nature Research, Zittau/Görlitz University of Applied Sciences), Saxony (TU Dresden, Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig), and beyond (University of Wrocław, University of Paderborn).

Several sites in Görlitz were considered during the location search. The building of the former Görlitz job center is an ideal location for CASUS in terms of concept and requirements (space requirements, location, and sustainability). The remodeling is currently estimated to cost around 29 million euros. Now that the decision on the location has been made, the next steps are detailed planning of the renovation followed by the construction phase.
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About the Center for Advanced Systems Understanding

CASUS was founded 2019 in Görlitz/Germany and pursues data-intensive interdisciplinary systems research in such diverse disciplines as earth systems research, systems biology or materials research. The goal of CASUS is to create digital images of complex systems of unprecedented fidelity to reality with innovative methods from mathematics, theoretical systems research, simulations as well as data and computer science to give answers to urgent societal questions. The founding partners of CASUS are the Helmholtz-Zentrum Dresden-Rossendorf (HZDR), the Helmholtz Centre for Environmental Research in Leipzig (UFZ), the Max Planck Institute of Molecular Cell Biology and Genetics in Dresden (MPI-CBG), the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) and the University of Wrocław (UWr). CASUS, managed as an institute of the HZDR, is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology and Space (BMFTR) and the Saxon State Ministry for Science, Culture and Tourism (SMWK).