Dr. h.c. Edelgard Bulmahn is chair of the Board of Trustees of Humboldt University of Berlin and board member of other Senats, Foundations and Boards of Trustees affiliated with sciences and research. She was a member of the German Bundestag for 30 years and has a proven track record in education, research and innovation policy. For more than twenty years, she has shaped Germany's education, research and innovation policy in multiple roles. She was chairwoman of the Committee on Education, Research and Technology and Technology Assessment, the Committee for Economy and Technology and a member of the Foreign Affairs Committee. Edelgard Bulmahn served as federal minister for education and research from 1998 up to November 2005 and as vice-president of the Bundestag from 2013 to 2017. During her tenure, she implemented the Bologna Process, reformed the student's funding system (BAföG), set up junior professorships and implemented funding programs such as the Sofja Kova-levskaja prize or the Emmy Noether program. She launched major funding programmes for health research, life and enviromental sciences, IT, nanotechnology, pace research and basic research. Moreover she launched the successful German Universities Excellence Initiative and set up the Pact for Research and Innovation to foster the competitiveness of the German science system.