A decision by the German government to pick the University of Münster as the site of a new €500m battery-cell-production research centre has provoked anger from those behind competing bids. The prime ministers of three German states — Baden-Württemberg, Bavaria and Lower Saxony — have penned an open letter to German Chancellor Angela Merkel claiming that the decision is based on political issues rather than being purely on scientific merit.

Dubbed the Forschungsfertigung Batteriezelle, the new centre has been set up by Germany’s Fraunhofer Society — Europe’s largest applied research organization. The selection process for the site of the new centre began in February, when several German organizations experienced in designing and producing battery cells were asked to submit proposals. Six cities submitted bids that were then reviewed by a founding commission that included representatives from Fraunhofer, the German Education and Research Ministry (BMBF) and the federal economics ministry.

Our aim is to create a top-class research centre for battery cell production Reimund Neugebauer

Three proposed locations were deemed suitable — Münster in the state of North Rhine-Westphalia, Ulm in Baden-Württemberg and the Lower Saxony city of Salzgitter. On 28 June — less then five months after research organizations were asked to submit proposals — Münster was announced as the winning bid at a press conference at the BMBF in Berlin.

Fast moving

The new centre will be located at the MEET battery-research facility at the University of Münster, with a key participant being RWTH Aachen University. Construction of a building to house the research centre is set to begin by the end of this year and completed by 2022. In addition to the €500m from the German government to establish the centre, the state of North Rhine-Westphalia has pledged an additional €200m.

“MEET’s expertise in developing materials and cells for batteries and RWTH Aachen’s expertise in the production of cells and batteries are an ideal complement to Fraunhofer’s expertise in production technology and the transfer of knowledge to industry,” says Fraunhofer president, the mechanical engineer Reimund Neugebauer. “Our aim is to create a top-class research centre for battery cell production that will organically accelerate innovation in the manufacture of new battery cell designs and their advance to the mass-production stage.”

Yet some have questioned the bidding process and in the speed with which a decision was made. In an interview with Die Welt, Baden-Württemberg prime minister Winfried Kretschmann described the decision as a “grave mistake for the entire republic”. He and many others had expected Ulm to be selected to host the new centre. The city is home to the Helmholtz Institute Ulm (HIU), which focuses on electrochemical energy storage and is affiliated with the University of Ulm and the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology. HIU also cooperates with the DLR German Aerospace Center and the Center for Solar Energy and Hydrogen Research, both located in Stuttgart, the capital of Baden-Württemberg. Read more Beyond the lithium-ion battery

The BMBF says that a quick decision was needed to let German research to move fast in the globally competitive field of battery-cell production, adding that the BMBF picked the site after consulting with the founding commission. It has also been widely noted in the German press that BMBF Minister Anja Karliczek was born and raised near Münster and that her constituency remains there. The BMBF insists, however, that while Karliczek started the selection procedure, she then stood down and exerted no influence during the process.

Maximilian Fichtner, HIU deputy director and head of its solid-state chemistry group, told the regional broadcaster Südwestrundfunk that there were ambiguities in the selection process that have not yet been explained. He adds that while “Berlin” asserts that the founding commission did not take a vote to choose the best city some say there was indeed a vote. Asked whether the decision was “a scandal” as politicians in the Baden-Württemberg parliament have claimed, Fichtner says it would be if the expertise presented during the selection process by researchers and representatives of the battery industry had been overridden. “Then, in our view, that would be questionable,” he adds.