Peter Gruss appointed next President of OIST Graduate University

The Board of Governors of the Okinawa Institute of Science and Technology has selected Peter Gruss as the next CEO of the OIST School Corporation and President of the Graduate University. Gruss served as President of the Max Planck Society from 2002 until 2014. Previously, he was Director of the Department of Molecular Cell Biology at the Max Planck Institute for Biophysical Chemistry in Göttingen for 16 years. He will be taking up office on January 1, 2017, succeeding Jonathan Dorfan.

The appointment of Peter Gruss culminates an extensive international search. "Peter Gruss stood out as the outstanding candidate and was unanimously approved by the Board of Governors as the new President/CEO as of January 1, 2017," said Albrecht Wagner, Chairman of the Presidential Search Committee. The extensive experience of Gruss in leading a complex research enterprise and his broad international network played a decisive role in his appointment. Both factors are of critical importance to OIST with regard to the recruitment of outstanding faculty and students from around the globe and the collaboration with academia and industry worldwide.

According to Gruss, OIST is currently probably the most interesting initiative in world scientific research and education. "It has very high ambitions to become established as one of the great research universities. The Japanese Government has a clear vision for setting up an international, interdisciplinary university that will produce the future leaders for rapidly changing research and business. I am honoured to be given the opportunity to lead OIST and look forward to the future with great excitement.”