Today is the last (official) day of the Cluster of Excellence Cognitive Interaction Technology (EXC 277) funded by the German Research Foundation.
This funding was not only a big one for our research environment here at Bielefeld University, but was an important part of my own career, too. I started as a PhD candidate in sports science, but closely linked to CITEC already. CITEC is where I have learnt the interdisciplinary way of science, for instance, as part of the graduate school. CITEC is where I continued my postdoctoral studies as part of a highly interdisciplinary team on a large scale project. And CITEC is what I’ve aknowledged on my publications. That’s CITEC from the outer perspective.
But – from within – CITEC is as well a group of scientists that have had a joint research agenda, although coming from very different disciplines. CITEC is a time during which I’ve met lots of interesting people, curious and ingenious scientists. CITEC was a building in which I just had to step down (or up) to go and see a colleage from computer science, linguistics, biology or psychology, in order to discuss a thought, an idea, a potential future project.
For the greatest of offices (until so far), for the interdisciplinary crowd of scientists, for the space to discuss whatever, for the freedom to go for it, for the things we’ve reached so far: Thanks CITEC!
To be continued.