FIZ Karlsruhe and FIZ CHEMIE Berlin enter into a strategic co-operation

The Managing Directors of both organisations publish a Letter of Intent for a Competence Centre for scientific and technical information and information services to strengthen the German information scene.

Now that the Boards of Directors have shown their agreement, it's the turn of the Managing Directors. On behalf of the Fachinformationszentrum (FIZ) Karlsruhe, Sabine Brünger-Weilandt, and on behalf of FIZ CHEMIE Berlin, Professor René Deplanque and Peter Schuhe, have publicized today their Letter of Intent outlining the planned close co-operation of both non-profit organisations at the comInfo 2004 conference and exhibition.
With this close co-operation a first step has been made to strengthen the long-term future of German providers of scientific information. We will position ourselves more strongly within the European context and thereby secure our long-term international competitiveness, explained Ms. Brünger-Weilandt. The new competence centre will have two major target groups; first, scientists in business and industry and second, scientists at research institutes and universities. We want to support our users by managing information and communication.
Prof. Deplanque emphasised: In Germany we have the capability, the brains and the vision to offer science both a first-class supply of information and to actively support the management of this scientific information. Both information centres have more than two decades of international experience in this field and now we will bring this know-how together.
Peter Schuhe sees a good chance to increase the operative degree of effectiveness with this co-operation. He explained: We will be able to attain positive synergies by optimally exploiting our joint expertise and the competences of our highly qualified members of staff and by effectively concentrating our technical and organisational resources.
The first manifestation of this closer co-operation was visible at the comInfo 2004 where both organisations are exhibiting together in one stand. The joint appearance in advertising and marketing is one of the projects outlined in the Letter of Intent; further projects in the field of mathematics and in the planning and development of innovative products and services will begin immediately.
In the future, an efficient, high-performance competence centre for scientific and technical information is expected to develop out of this strategic alliance. Furthermore, the organisational model has been developed so that the future integration of additional partner institutions will also be possible.
Background information:,Both FIZ Karlsruhe and FIZ CHEMIE Berlin are scientific service institutions of the Leibniz Association, a society of non-university research and service institutions operating in various scientific fields. They are supported by the Federal German Government and by the German States, but both institutions also finance themselves to a high degree from the sale of their products and services. Both are organised as non-profit limited-liability companies. They produce and market scientific and technical information services in electronic and printed form and cover the whole spectrum of scientific information services, from the acquisition of data and production of databases, via the supply of information on all modern data storage and communication media and services such as the management of information, to the supply of full-text products via online order systems.
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin focuses on producing information services for chemistry and its related sciences. The product portfolio of FIZ Karlsruhe comprises highly developed specialised databases for all sciences and technologies and for international patents and trademarks. Corresponding economic information are also on offer for many fields of science.
The products and services of both institutes are available world-wide. The largest business sector of FIZ Karlsruhe is the operation of STN® International (The Scientific and Technical Information Network), the leading online service for science and technology. For 20 years now, STN International has been made available as part of a trilateral alliance with the Chemical Abstracts Service (CAS) in Columbus, Ohio (USA) and the Japan Science and Technology Corporation (JST) in Tokyo. Currently, more than 220 databases with more than 400 million documents are available from STN.Further Information:,FIZ Karlsruhe,Gesellschaft fur wissenschaftlich-technische Information mbH,Hermann-von-Helmholtz-Platz 1,76344 Eggenstein-Leopoldshafen,Phone: [phone],Fax: [phone],Internet: http://www.fiz-karlsruhe.de,E-mail: [e-mail]
For the Press:,Rudiger Mack,Phone: [phone],E-mail: [e-mail]
FIZ CHEMIE Berlin,Fachinformationszentrum Chemie GmbH,(The Chemistry Information Centre),Franklinstra?e 11,10587 Berlin (Charlottenburg),Phone: [phone],Fax: [phone],Internet: http://www.chemistry.de,E-mail: [e-mail]
For the Press:,Dr. Anthony R. Flambard,Phone: [phone],E-mail: [e-mail]

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Germany