Science-supporting Units

The Science-supporting Units are divided into the following areas:

Purchasing

The purchasing department is divided into two areas: investments/equipment and materials. Whereas needs are assessed and analysed in cooperation with the technical and the scientific departments, supplier selection and purchasing transactions are driven primarily by the purchasing department. The department endeavours to optimise the quality, price and speed of transactions for products and services using framework agreements and market benefits. 

Here you can find the Announcements of awarded contracts (only in German).

Finance and Accounting

The finance and accounting department focuses on budgeting and budget implementation and controlling. The department’s output-driven management links monetary targets with scientific performance in programme budgets. The department delivers an annual financial statement with complete assets accounting. It also books and manages the finances of extensive construction work. The finance and accounting department also administrates funding and manages the assets of a further foundation, the Ferdinand Bergen-Stiftung. 

Laboratory and sterile equipment

The LIV laboratory and sterile equipment staff is key to ensuring microbiologically clean and germ-free work in the institute’s laboratories. Besides cleaning lab materials, they operate advanced equipment such as autoclaves, various dishwashers and sterilizers to provide research groups with clean and sterile materials for experiments. This eliminates and prevents any contamination of the equipment. Their other important task is to properly and sustainably destroy bacteria, viruses and obsolete experimental implements following strict guidelines. 

Human Resources

The human resources department looks after staff, visiting scientists and the institute’s pension recipients. Supported by the external service provider sdworx, the department covers all conventional areas of human resources ranging from partial retirement to the recording of time worked. Payment rates are based on the collective labour agreement of the Hamburg Labour Law Association (Tarifvertrag der Arbeitsrechtliche Vereinigung Hamburg e.V. - TV-AVH), which closely follows the collective agreement for civil servants (Tarifvertrag für den öffentlichen Dienst - TVöD). 

Technical Services

The LIV’s facility management service maintains advanced laboratory and building equipment. The technical services staff look after refrigeration and air conditioning equipment and regulate supply and exhaust air in laboratories and other premises of the institute. In addition, the team maintains the institute’s two boilers, the combined heat and power unit, the two emergency engines, the desalination and water softening facility for water treatment and the two transformers, including medium-to-low voltage stations that supply the whole institute with electricity. A further responsibility is the service’s maintenance and upkeep of the buildings and grounds. Problems with technical equipment are solved either internally by the technical services or by an external service.

The management of technical services as well as the administrative staff report directly to the administrative director.

Systems Administration / IT

In addition to computerized workstations, the LIV operates a variety of data-generating analysis and processing systems. These include scientific workstations, workstations in the administrative department and systems for building management and communication technology.

The IT department is a centralized service that reports directly to the board, with which it plans the institute’s long term IT strategies. Among other things the department is responsible for operating and developing the core infrastructure (consisting of about 25 server systems), the intranet and the external connection to the Regional Computing Centre of the University of Hamburg. The department is also in charge of the institute’s approximately 300 end user systems and peripheral units, operates regular preventative care and maintenance and acts as a contact for all IT needs.

The solutions for IT are designed to be very flexible to allow expansion and customization, especially because new scientific technologies such as high-throughput sequencing or new systems for image analysis require infrastructural adaptations to changing requirements.

Many LIV premises outside the laboratories have wireless connections, especially to provide guests with access to the internet.