3 September 2025
On 28 August 2025, Forschungszentrum Jülich’s JuLab was honoured with the prestigious National Education for Sustainable Development Award. This award is presented jointly by the Federal Ministry for Education, Family Affairs, Senior Citizens, Women and Youth and the German Commission for UNESCO.
The jury praised JuLab for its innovative educational offerings, which empower people to actively shape a sustainable and responsible future. Particular mention was made of its commitment to the United Nations' global sustainability goals.
During a festive ceremony, Dr. Andrea Ruyter-Petznek, Head of the Education for Sustainability Division at the BMBFSFJ, and Dr. Roman Luckscheiter, Secretary-General of the German UNESCO Commission, honored a total of 41 initiatives for their outstanding commitment.
Congratulations on this award, Ms. Keutmann. What makes the JuLab student laboratory a model of sustainability?
The JuLab has been around for 20 years. Our task is to make the socially relevant research conducted at Forschungszentrum Jülich understandable for young people, but also for parents, teachers, and other multipliers. In this way, we combine the promotion of young talent with public relations work.
From the outset, Jülich's research topics have focused on energy, climate, bioeconomy, and information technologies. For the past five years, however, we have been deliberately looking at them from the perspective of education for sustainable development—in line with the 17 Sustainable Development Goals and the United Nations' 2030 Agenda. For us, sustainability is not an additional topic, but an attitude that shapes our actions.
We are continuously educating ourselves, addressing topics such as equal opportunities and dealing with fake news, and actively seeking collaboration with the institutes of the research center. In this way, we want to show that the major social challenges can only be overcome together through education and research. Direct contact with researchers is particularly formative for many students—perhaps they are the researchers of tomorrow, but in any case, they are active co-creators of our future.
Which of JuLab's offerings are you particularly proud of?
It is not so much a single offering as the entirety of our work that I am proud of. We offer formats for all age groups – from elementary school to high school – and create spaces where young people can experience Science for themselves.
In addition to experiment days on topics such as the brain, radioactivity, soil, and superconductivity, there are project courses on agrophotovoltaics and future energy. The Helmholtz Student Congress in particular combines current research with questions of politics, society, and individual opportunities for action.
In addition, we train teachers and educators, lend out experiment kits we have developed ourselves, and thus strengthen STEM education directly on site in daycare centers and schools.
However, what impresses me most is the commitment of our team: with professional competence and passion, they prepare our diverse offerings, organize experiment formats, and accompany the students as they make their own discoveries.
What are your plans for the future?
In terms of content, we would like to expand our portfolio to include the future-oriented topic of quantum information. At the same time, we want to intensify our cooperation with the institutes at the Research Center in order to be able to develop educational offerings that are even more closely linked to current research. In addition, we want to make our work even more visible—both internally and externally.
Even here at the research center, many of our colleagues are not aware of what we offer and how we work. We would like to change this and hope that offerings such as our Open Monday or Open Week will be used more extensively.
In addition, we would like to further increase our visibility. As the teaching staff is constantly changing, it is important for us to continually establish new contacts and win schools over to collaborate with us in the spirit of education for sustainable development.
Sunday is Open Day again, when Forschungszentrum Jülich opens its doors to visitors of all ages. What can they see at JuLab?
We open our themed rooms, which are based on the center's major fields of research.
A well-thought-out color concept shows how our experiments are linked to Jülich's research and everyday life. This makes science and research vivid and understandable for children, young people, and adults alike.
The JuLab on the BNE-actors map
