Science-supporting Units

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

Purchasing & Logistics

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).

Accounting and External Funding Management

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). 

Facility Management

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.

IT

In addition to IT-supported workplaces, the LIV operates a wide range of data-generating analysis and processing systems. These include both scientific workstations and systems in science-supporting units, as well as building management and communication technology installations.

The IT department is responsible for the operation and continuous development of the central IT infrastructure (comprising around 40 server systems) the entire intranet, and the redundant internet connection. It also manages approximately 300 end-user systems including peripheral devices, carries out regular maintenance and servicing to prevent malfunctions, and serves as the central point of contact for all IT-related matters at the institute.

The IT solutions in use are designed for maximum scalability and adaptability in order to respond flexibly to new technological requirements in the scientific environment—such as those arising from high-throughput sequencing or image analysis methods.

Most office and meeting rooms outside the laboratories are equipped with Wi-Fi. Guests are provided with internet access that supports the use of Easyroam and Eduroam.

The IT department also supports the setup of hybrid meetings that combine in-person and video conferencing formats to enable flexible and contemporary collaboration.

In addition, the IT team works closely with the institute's internal Scientific Computing technology platform. It supports the Scientific Computing team in building a high-performance HPC infrastructure and in integrating new HPC hardware into the existing IT landscape and security architecture.

Another key area of responsibility for LIV-IT is cybersecurity. The department operates and administers a learning platform focused on Cybersecurity Awareness for employees. It is also responsible for the expansion of the Zero Trust Network (ZTN) as well as for the continuous updating and further development of IT security measures and technologies.