Abstract

The Computational Health Center (CHC), formed in 2021, is one of seven research centers within Helmholtz Munich, a member of Germany’s largest scientific organization, the Helmholtz Association. The CHC comprises five complementary research institutes covering topics within health AI, systems biomedicine, digital genomics and image computing. The CHC is a dynamic, innovative and collaborative environment with scientists developing novel computational tools powered by AI to accelerate discovery and translation, as well as applying cutting-edge computational methods to promote personalized health through the analysis of a wide range of health data including molecular, imaging, and clinical data of human health and disease. Thus, the scientists at the CHC help to create innovative diagnostics and novel treatments for environmentally triggered diseases, feeding into the overarching strategic focus of Helmholtz Munich. The central hub of Helmholtz AI is also located at Helmholtz Munich, with local units representing diverse research fields spread across Germany.

To meet the demands of a rapidly growing center working within increasingly hot topic areas, we recently established our own in-house grant management team that works closely with central project funding support at Helmholtz Munich. We support third-party funding applications from our scientists, manage ongoing projects, facilitate research cooperations, and also work with colleagues to foster business development and entrepreneurship opportunities. We are interested in sharing our experiences of building a new, department-oriented grant management team, and would like to network with other science managers working on similar topics across Europe, to better support our researchers in their research funding endeavours and to widen international collaborations.