Dear DESY people,

For more than a year now, COVID has been disrupting our everyday lives, our plans and wishes, dreams and goals, not only at home but also at DESY. The core question of this newsletter is therefore: how is it going? How are we dealing with it? We asked this question looking back at the past year, but also asked: what is coming? What have we learned and where are we lacking? What has changed and what are we looking forward to when the last COVID wave finally dies down?

DESY and COVID – in the pandemic, it becomes clear that basic research is of great importance for society and its health. But above all, it has become clear how flexible and committed the DESY staff are when it comes to maintaining our scientific operations in these extremely challenging times. Each and every one of you makes a contribution to this!

Wishing you a happy Easter,
Your DESY inform team

"The Corona Task Force feels like a group triathlon…"

Christian Harringa has been heading the Corona Task Force – DESY's crisis team of experts, communicators and decision-makers – since the beginning of the pandemic. In DESY inform, the Administrative Director shares the challenges of this extraordinary task:

Mr Harringa, have you ever thought that you would one day head a Corona Task Force?
No, the usual task forces for an administrative director tend to be in areas such as strategy, resource shortages or personnel development concepts... Safety exercises are usually about something that burns, and in any case it's over after a few weeks. The Corona Task Force is more like a group triathlon…

Do you have some concrete task force figures for us?
The Task Force consists of some 25 experts. At the beginning we were joking about whether the Task Force would ever have its 50th meeting, but now we are at 86. Our Corona Guide is now in its 14th edition. There is still only one suspected case of infection on campus, not least thanks to the prudent behaviour of DESY employees. Among our employees, we have 27 confirmed cases of COVID in Hamburg and five in Zeuthen, which fortunately have been mild so far. We are thus well below the infection rate of the population as a whole.

Read the entire interview here

Common Cause

For HR manager Sonja Gebert and her V2 department, the pandemic months have been and are extremely challenging. The HR department has answered more than 1,000 mails received via the address health.service@desy.de. "Initially, a lot of things were generic – now it's often about individual situations for which we look for and find individual solutions," says Gebert and points out: "When employees come to us with problems, there is a lot of room for manoeuvre at DESY." Find out what else distinguishes DESY as a generous employer and what consequences the pandemic has had for paper-based processes, HERE.

DESY Coffeebar: nice to see you!

DESY opened a new place for digital exchange with a non-scientific experiment at the end of January: the first virtual DESY Coffeebar. Since then, it has become the new campus meeting place. In the Coffeebar, virtual themed and breakout rooms (from the Fireside Lounge to the Dog Run) in Zoom offer the opportunity to make meeting appointments or run into each other by chance and have a casual chat. In addition, 30-minute moderated sessions on very different topics are offered three days a week. Helmut Dosch spoke about Coronavirus at DESY, Thies Behnke revealed the challenges of homeschooling and Meike Johannsen gave tips for excursions around Hamburg. "The Coffeebar is a nice way to stay in touch with colleagues in difficult lockdown times – or to meet new ones," says Stefanie Fahlfeder from the Coffeebar team.

The DESY Coffeebar is open on weekdays from 8:00 a.m. to 10:00 p.m. Login information and the current programme overview are available at www.desy.de/coffeebar. The team is looking forward to all who drop by; especially DESY people who would like to present and moderate their own ideas and topics. Simply register here: coffeebar@desy.de.

click here to get to the Coffeebar

Career take-off with pandemic hurdles

Lots of theory, little practice: trainees, master students and doctoral students at DESY suffered from difficult conditions last year. After all, how does an industrial mechanic work without a workbench and how do students exchange information with their supervisors? Prospective DESY students from Zeuthen talk about their unusual entries into professional life.

Since the beginning of the pandemic, company doctor Katharina Bünz has been the expert for medical questions in the DESY Corona Task Force, the contact point for concerned staff and a reliable discussion partner for DESY inform. A Coronavisurs medical stocktake:

Touching realisation
I don't think there is a single DESY person who has not been personally affected in some way. This is touching and comforting at the same time: the magnitude of the impact of the pandemic, which somehow also connects us as a collective.

Impressive performance
The creativity at DESY with which spatial distance is overcome with online formats that provide exchange, fun and consolation.

A non-prescription comforter
The pandemic is a long-distance race and I observe that some people spent themselves in March/April last year because we all hoped it would be a sprint. We have to persevere; at least until we reach a good vaccination rate. Realising this may protect us from disappointment. In dealing positively with the current situation, the concept of "self-efficacy" is particularly important. Things that we can take into our own hands strengthen our resilience. For example, making a daily positive list of nice and good things – mentally or physically. In this way we can escape the negative-thought spiral.

Internal vaccination plan
DESY also plans to offer vaccinations as soon as there is sufficient vaccine available. We are following the development closely and are already preparing as much as possible to be ready to start when the framework conditions allow.

DESY@SORMAS

DESY is supporting the Helmholtz Centre for Infection Research and the Academy of Public Health in the nationwide introduction and training of SORMAS. SORMAS is a contact tracing software for COVID-19 cases. Already since mid-December, a group of DESY staff has been involved in the training team, helping to conduct telephone training courses and create learning content for an e-learning course. So far, just under half of the state health departments in Germany are using SORMAS, and more are to follow.

WORKPLACE SURVEY

DESY is under (re)construction. In Hamburg and Zeuthen, new spaces are being created where we will work in the future. Since the beginning of 2020, the Campus Development team around Tobias Piekatz has been developing the character of these new buildings and spaces together with the office JES Socialtecture. "It is important for us to build for the future and to meet the increasing demands for mobile working," says project manager Piekatz. "As we know that the interpretation of 'work' differs individually for more than 2700 employees, we launched a large survey on this in February." It found lively participation: 1274 DESY staff gave their very personal answers about what is important to them in the DESY workplace survey. The results will be analysed in detail in the next few weeks, but one thing is already clear: the flexibility gained through COVID has also changed the DESY working world and classic concepts do not fit (anymore) in many places. Instead, we need a catalogue of design options for working environments with different equipment variants from which the groups can put together what they need. In addition to office workplaces, laboratories and workshops will also be included in the future. The first prototype of such a new working environment office is currently being planned in the form of the conversion of a former seminar room in Building 1. The Campus Development team will inform you as soon as this is completed and looks forward to a visit and your feedback!

News for DESY appraisals

The annual appraisals between employees and managers are being brought forward. This year, a transitional arrangement applies up to and including October; from 2022 onwards, the appraisals will take place in the first half of the year. This was agreed with the central works council. Due to the Coronavirus situation, the appraisals can also be held virtually. More information and new offers and documents on the topic of annual appraisals can be found on the HR Development website.

"JUGEND FORSCHT" AT DESY

Almost 100 young scientific talents took part in the "Jugend Forscht" regional competition Hamburg Bahrenfeld in February, which was organised by the DESY School Laboratory. A total of 45 projects were presented online to the expert juries. Nine of them qualified for the state competition taking place at the end of March. This was already the ninth time that DESY hosted the regional competition.

Extending the DESY PR department

DESY's PR department is growing: the Team Relation Management (RM) led by Katja Kroschewski is joining the Press & Public Relations department as a new specialist group. DESY is thus bundling the common interfaces and communicative goals of both departments. Kerstin Straub manages all departments as department head, Katja Kroschewski is department head for Relation Management and Digital Organisation. To reflect the growing tasks, the department also gets a new name: DESY Press & Communication.

Topic: Hydrogen – Helmholtz Sustainability Talk at DESY

On 19 April at 7.15 p.m. at DESY, a high-level panel with representatives from science, politics, industry and NGOs will discuss how a hydrogen economy can be developed sustainably. The panel will include Hamburg's First Mayor Peter Tschentscher. The event will take place without an audience. However, you can watch it live via the stream at www.helmholtz-nachhaltigkeit.de and on the DESY YouTube channel.

DESY Science Café online

Virtual success: the Science Café team is happy about the great interest in the past online lectures and discussion rounds. On 28 April at 6:00 p.m., Kai Schmidt-Hoberg will discuss the topic "How loud was the Big Bang?", and on 26 May, Martin Köhler will speak about "Bionics: learning from nature". After the summer holidays, the programme continues on 25 August.

To the Science Café

Digital schoollab

High-school students can now visit the eLab or quantum laboratory of the DESY student laboratory via Zoom. The experiments are shown in front of a webcam and discussed extensively. This is also a good way to prepare for your A-levels. The topics and dates are arranged individually. Please send enquiries by e-mail to physik.begreifen@desy.de

Science on tap

Smaller, shorter, different: the popular science-in-the-pub series "Wissen vom Fass" is planned as an online event this year because of the pandemic. On 27 May you can quench your thirst for knowledge online. More info to follow.

Research teams at DESY are working hard to find solutions in the fight against the pandemic. Spiegel Online, the Hamburger Abendblatt and the TV programme planet e (ZDF) have reported on DESY's corona research over the past months.

The article "Shrinkage cure for particle accelerators" from Deutschlandfunk was about a completely different topic: the plasma accelerator visions of Wim Leemans and his team. You can read and listen to it again HERE.

DESY inform team:

Project management: Kerstin Straub
Editorial management: Kristin Hüttmann
Editorial team: Christina Mänz, Barbara Warmbein, Thomas Zoufal
Production and design: Stefanie Fahlfeder, Britta Liebaug
Picture credits: Marta Mayer, Gesine Born, Susann Niedworok, Stefanie Fahlfeder, Britta Liebaug | iStock, Peter Schreiber
Contact: inform@desy.de