Renowned guests such as Ina Brandes, Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia, Dr Simone Schwanitz, Secretary General of the Max Planck Society, Prof. Dr Martin Stratmann, former President of the Max Planck Society, Prof. Dr Günter Meschke, Vice Rector of the Ruhr University Bochum, Gaby Schäfer, Mayor of the City of Bochum, Prof. Dr Christof Paar, Founding Director, and Erasmus Easmus actively participated in the ground-breaking ceremony for the new building of the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP) by Eller+Eller Architekten.

In times of advancing digitalisation and growing cybercrime, the MPI-SP will be the scientific centre for IT security for companies, organisations and private individuals. The institute’s tasks include cutting-edge research into cyber security, cryptography, IT system security and the legal, economic and social aspects of security and privacy.

The new MPI-SP building is part of a new cluster of excellence in the science city of Bochum, which is being built on the former Opel site together with neighbours such as the Centre for Theoretical and Integrative Neuro- and Cognitive Science (Think), the Institute of Computer Science and the Research Centre for the Engineering of Smart Product-Service Systems (ZESS) at Ruhr-Universität Bochum.

‘An old industrial site is becoming a home for top international research! In future, world-leading scientists will conduct basic research into cyber security on the old Opel site – one of the major topics of the future that directly affects the lives of all people,’ emphasised Ina Brandes, NRW Minister for Culture and Science.

The ground-breaking ceremony on 21 October marks the start of construction for the Max Planck Institute for Security and Privacy (MPI-SP), which was founded in 2019 on the former Opel site in Bochum. Offices, laboratories and a lecture theatre are being built on a gross floor area of almost 14,000 square metres. The new building will be an energy-efficient, state-of-the-art workplace in which researchers from the engineering and social sciences will work together on an interdisciplinary basis. Networked working environments will support six departments and twelve research groups in the collaborative exchange of knowledge both within the institute and with external research groups. Office space, behavioural and electronics laboratories, a seminar area with a lecture theatre for 200 people and a cafeteria enable topic-focused work as well as interaction and communication.

‘The new MPI-SP building will not only offer scientists a place to work, but also a place they can identify with. 350 employees will benefit from the extensive communal, functional and special areas on the ground floor, which promote collaboration and interdisciplinary research,’ explains Erasmus Eller, architect and Managing Director of Eller + Eller Architekten with his team Gerald Ollig, Bettina Gerlach, Louisa Wetzstein, Chang-Ye Ho, Bakir Hajrovic and Jörg Hirschfeld.