Science as a driver of urban development

Rostock is a leading location of new technologies - with a concentration of scientific research centres, throughout Germany and the Baltic. Rising the awareness of this fact is the challenge that [Rostock denkt 365°] has put upon itself. This association has the concept to present the city inwards and outwards as the city of the sciences and a centre of technological innovation.

With buoys in front of scientific research facilities throughout the whole city sets [Rostock thinks 365°] symbols for the science location Rostock

All scientific institutes have been put together and linked into a network. Altogether 49 stakeholders are identifying where the opportunities are for Rostock and which future obstacles the city will have to steer around. By these means Rostock is, due to the science, sharpening its profile, combining forces and developing its skills. The aim is to persistently change the city to the tenor that the sci- ence as impetus is permanently embedded into the awareness of the citizens and to constantly bind the partners together. It is yet to be determined how the latest research results may lead to marketable products and in an economically underdeveloped region preferably also guide to the creation of new jobs. The promise is that Rostock will arise strengthened from the current economic depression. Chairman Prof. Dr. Udo Kragl states that the association's slogan and name'are founded on the belief that facilities in this globalized world need to be one ship's length ahead of their contestants'. Furthermore: 'Who wants to achieve this, first of all needs to invest in knowledge and smart thoughts'.

Prof. Dr. Kragl, who is also the dean of the Germany-wide unique "Interdisciplinary Faculty" at the University of Rostock, states that the slogan expresses, that Rostock's science: "investigates, orientates, illuminates its environment, analyses and localises the circumstances, reviews its present position and focuses on its problems. The so called "buoys of knowledge" have become its symbol. Those are discharged nautical buoys taken from the harbour, which are now presented as striking "navigation marks". [Rostock denkt 365°] places them in front of the scientific research facilities in the city. In that way residents and visi- tors can directly identify where research and teaching is taking place. On top of that they are able to see how numerous colleges and institutes are dispersed in the municipal area.