The Ludwig Boltzmann Gesellschaft (LBG) invited with Prof. Dr. Gerard Evan (Head of Department of Biochemistry, University of Cambridge, UK) (chair), Prof. Dr. Aly Karsan (Department of Pathology and Laboratory Medicine, University of British Columbia; Medical Director, Centre for Clinical Genomics, Michael Smith Genome Sciences Centre, BC Cancer Agency, Vancouver, Canada) Prof. Dr. Achim Leutz (Head of the Group Cell Differentiation and Tumorigenesis, Max Delbrück Center for Molecular Medicine, Berlin, Germany) an international team of experts to evaluate the performance of the Ludwig Boltzmann Institute for Cancer Research since its extension in 2011. This evaluation is a regular procedure within the statutes of LBG after initiating the second funding period of a Ludwig Boltzmann Institute.
The LBI-CR provided an extensive 80 pages report about its activities from 2011 to 2014 to prepare for this evaluation. Moreover, the LBG generated a comprehensive set of questions that served the evaluation panel as terms of reference. The evaluators had the opportunity to discuss in separate meetings with the directors and research manager, key researchers, scientific staff, scientific advisory board as well as partner representatives.
The evaluation panel concluded that the LBI-CR developed into an important center of excellence for mechanistic cancer research during the last ten years of its existence also due to the visionary funding of this Institute by the Ludwig-Boltzmann-Gesellschaft, which has always been very generous. The model expertise within this institute provides a very unique contribution to the scientific landscape in Austria. This is facilitated by the contribution of the institute’s Partners. Overall, the progress and quality of work done at the institute was judged as impressive and further funding strongly recommended.
The director of the institue Richard Moriggl stated upon receipt of the evaluation report: "We are very happy that this panel of distinguished scientists provided a strong endoresement of our research. This successful evaluation could only be achieved with the strong support of our partners, the generous funding of the LBG and the other funding bodies which supplement our institute's financial ressources. Last but not least I also have to thank our scientific staff, because it is their output in the form of publications, which forms the basis for such a wonderful success."
The LBI-CR is currently integrating its research infrastructure into the Partner unversities Medical University Vienna and University of Veterinary Medicine,Vienna, which is facilitated through threee endowed professorships to the LBI-CR key researchers Emilio Casanova, Lukas Kenner and Richard Moriggl.