The Institute for Plant Sciences, founded in 1928, encompasses nine internationally linked professorships and hosts several independently funded junior research groups. The mission of the institute is to generate knowledge on the fundamental processes governing plant biology as well as provide upcoming generations of young scientists with excellent training and mentoring. We use state-of-the-art molecular techniques to address current challenges in plant sciences, especially in cell and developmental biology, molecular physiology, plant responses to the biotic and abiotic environment and adaptive evolution.

The Institute for Plant Sciences is a major building block of the Cluster of Excellence on Plant Sciences (CEPLAS) that, together with the University of Düsseldorf, the Max Planck Institute for Plant Breeding Research and the Forschungszentrum Jülich, aims at developing new paradigms for crop improvement through exploitation of natural variation, biodiversity and synthetic biology.

The Institute for Plant Sciences is involved in teaching and training at all levels of the biology curriculum. We convey our undergraduate students and junior scientists a solid general background that is firmly anchored in the cutting-edge concepts of modern plant sciences and propose a multifaceted education at the interface between biology, computational sciences, mathematics and statistics. In addition, the Institute for Plant Sciences is a partner institution for several international graduate schools and thus tailors an individual training to each graduate student. This advanced training allows students to develop their individual creativity in demanding research projects while offering an array of interdisciplinary programs to diversify their professional skills.