Our organizational structures

The Leibniz Institute for Science and Mathematics Education (IPN) is one of 97 research institutes of the Leibniz Association. Its executive management consists of Prof. Dr. Olaf Köller, the Managing Director of Research, and Mareike Bierlich, the Managing Director of Administration. The management comes together with the IPN’s heads of department to form the Board of Directors, whose role is to consider key matters and issues affecting the IPN.

The Board of Trustees oversees the IPN’s operations and is charged with monitoring their cost-effectiveness and ensuring their compliance with the law.

The Scientific Advisory Board, consisting of researchers and policymakers from outside the IPN, conducts regular evaluations of the Institute’s work and advises it on its medium-term research planning.

Within the IPN, the Scientific Committee provides advice and assistance in relation to grant applications and CPD and seeks to improve the working environment for researchers, particularly for those at the outset of their careers.

The IPN has a staff of approximately 200, who work in seven research departments (Biology Education, Chemistry Education, Mathematics Education, Physics Education, Educational Research and Educational Psychology, Educational Measurement and Data Science, and Knowledge Transfer), in the joint Computer Science Education Research Group run by the IPN and Kiel University, and in infrastructure and support services including the administrative department, the Institute’s Library, IT services, and media and communications.

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The IPN conducts research on a range of current issues in STEM education, working in interdisciplinary teams of researchers from the sciences, mathematics, computer science, education studies, and psychology. Our research projects form a matrix, with our departments providing an overarching structure and our research lines supplying cross-department links, facilitating collaboration, and generating scope for our work to evolve dynamically in response to changes in the research landscape.