In a sense, science managers are like architects of glass buildings. “Both must aim for transparency and stability,” says Johann-Dietrich Wörner, the new chairman of the German Aerospace Centre and a former building engineer. (See CV)

Wörner faces considerable challenges in his new post, as the centre has lost a bit of its sparkle in recent years. Two years ago, the budget of its flagship component, the German space agency (DLR), had shrunk so much that scientists feared it would become difficult to participate in space missions at all. The agency coordinates national space projects and manages Germany's contributions to European Space Agency (ESA) missions. Pictures taken by the German-built high-resolution stereo camera on board ESA's Mars Express thrilled scientists worldwide.

The DLR has to fight to stand its ground, says Günther Hasinger, a director at the Max Planck Institute for Extraterrestrial Physics in Garching. He is optimistic that Wörner can meet the challenge. “The national space budget for the next years has happily increased, not least thanks to the community's loud complaining,” he says. “I hope Wörner will treat space research with the priority it deserves.”

Wörner knows it will be hard to meet all expectations. Space research and astronomy have to compete with other DLR-funded activities such as aeronautics and transport- and energy-related research. With more than 5,000 staff, the DLR is Germany's biggest research institution.

Wörner gathered management experience during the period he spent as president of the Technical University Darmstadt, one of Germany's most progressive universities in terms of academic and administrative autonomy. He earned his PhD at the university, and took a post as professor there. His presidency at Darmstadt, which began in 1995, marked his shift from passionate engineer to diplomatic science manager.

The DLR's offer came just at the right time. “I had achieved my goals at Darmstadt,” he says. “It was time to move on.” As president of the only German university that has a special law affording it a higher-than-usual degree of autonomy, he enjoyed considerable leeway in appointing professors and setting up new programmes.

But Wörner knows that, given its size and the scope of its mission, the DLR is in a different league. He will have to act as a mediator for ESA, the German government and the country's space-science community — a task, he says, that will require diplomacy, sensitivity and a thick skin.