Armin Schram: a sponsor of curiosity-driven brain research

At the age of 71, Armin Schram realized his life’s dream: In 2000, he established the Schram-Stiftung to promote science and research in the neurosciences.

Since his childhood and youth spent in St. Gilgen, Vienna, and Prague, Armin Schram was interested in the enormous performance power of the brain. Already as a child, he was fascinated by the waggle dance of the honeybees; as a teenager, he kept track of the research of the later Nobel Laureate Karl von Frisch. If the pin-size brain of the bees was capable of such great things, how much more must the human brain be able to achieve! “I am fascinated by brain research. The human brain is a miracle of nature”, he said at the inauguration of the foundation.

Armin Schram was convinced that without knowledge of the molecular processes in the brain, we will not be able to gain a full understanding of its complexity and its specific performance. As a result, he focused on basic research, leaving clinical research to other sponsors. “Research that aims for quick-to-achieve, specific goals will find funding more easily, no matter whether the goal is humanitarian, cultural, or medical. Where funding is scarce, progress and thus the well-being of people is best served in the long term by funding basic research.”

Armin Schram was also passionately interested in how scientific insights come about, frequently in ways that may not always look straight forward. He was very critical about the fact that our current science funding systems do not accept failures and dead ends, rather they primarily support research that promises short-term pay-off at manageable risks. He admired the tenacity of somebody like Ramón y Cajal, the founder of modern neuroscience. Cajal’s assumption that nerve cells are independent entities, for which he received the Nobel Prize in 1906, was corroborated only half a century later through electron microscopy.

Through his foundation, Armin Schram wanted to support researchers who are willing to break new ground and leave the “low-risk culture” behind. With its “Cellular Neurobiology” funding program, launched in 2004, the foundation addresses “Cajal’s modern heirs, pioneers who appreciate lateral thinking” and are not afraid of risk, i.e. independent young scientists such as heads of junior research groups, junior professors or young university teachers. To date, the foundation has issued seven calls and supported a total of 26 projects. The donor greatly enjoyed watching the growth of his “Schram family” and meeting the grant recipients at the “Schram Symposia” that took place since 2009 as satellite events of the Biennial Meetings of the German Neuroscience Society (Neurowissenschaftliche Gesellschaft – NWG). At these symposia Schram-funded project leaders present their latest research results. The donor’s “closing remarks” always addressed and encouraged the participants at a very personal level. However, not only the participation in the biennial symposia, was an important occasion to interact with his scientific family. Armin Schram was deeply and personally committed to advising and supporting all project leaders of the foundation. He appreciated the direct exchange with the funded scientists, visited the researchers in their labs in Frankfurt, Vienna or Jena to look over their shoulders, and was highly interested in the advanced techniques that they applied. And he was delighted when the NWG in 2011 made him an honorary member for his long-term and outstanding commitment to fundamental research in neuroscience.

Armin Schram was always aware that a foundation needs to rely on expert advice. As a result, he appointed two renowned neuroscientists, Heinrich Betz and Eckart Gundelfinger, to the foundation’s advisory board. Together, they set the course for the foundation’s program. Schram participated in the annual board meetings, demonstrating great expertise and spreading contagious enthusiasm. Well-prepared with a list of his favorites in the pocket, he only revealed his choice once the selection process of winning grants had been completed. Quite often, his “passionate layman’s” assessment was in complete accord with the ranking made by the advisory board based on external reviews.

Since Heinrich Betz’ retirement from the board, Christian Rosenmund and Dorothea Schulte have joined Eckart Gundelfinger in guiding the course of the foundation. In 2019, the board, together with the NWG, launched the “Armin Schram Lecture” to honor the donor and his accomplishments posthumously. The first lecture of this type was given by Volker Haucke from the Leibniz Research Institute for Molecular Pharmacology in Berlin-Buch, who was a grant recipient in 2009.

Armin Schram was confident that his foundation would not run out of research questions in the near future; like Cajal, he was convinced that the grey substance was so complicated “that it defies the tenacious curiosity of researchers — and will continue to do so for many centuries to come.”

Deutsche Demenzhilfe — DZNE-Stiftung für Forschung und innovation

The foundation was set up in 2018 by Dr. h. c. Erwin V. Conradi in memory of his wife Karin Christiane Conradi.

Endowment capital: EUR 1 million

Funding programs

The foundation aims to promote science and research, in particular in the field of neurodegenerative diseases; a main concern is funding the activities of the Deutsches Zentrum für Neurodegenerative Erkrankungen e.V. (DZNE) in Bonn. Here, a particular focus is on work that aims to translate the results from basic research into practice and the “Querdenker-Programm” (unorthodox thinker program) open to young researchers with innovative ideas outside the scientific mainstream.

Figure 1:

Side conversation during the second Schram Symposium 2011 at the Max Planck Institute for Experimental Medicine in Göttingen. From left to right: Heinrich Betz (Board member), Marilen Macher (Board member, Stifterverband), Armin Schram (the Founder) and Klaus-Armin Nave (Director at the host institution).

Figure 1: blende-elf, Wolfgang Rink

Figure 2:

Armin Schram in the audience of the third Schram Symposium 2013 in Göttingen. Foto: Peter Himsel

Figure 3:

Lecture during the fifth Schram Symposium 2017 in Göttingen. Foto: David Ausserhofer