Three. Two. One.

[Foreword from the Institute's 2020 Annual Report.]

In the foreword to 2019, we wanted to jump a long way. But no sooner had the new year begun than everything turned upside down: this is how the start of 2020 could be summed up. No one had the slightest idea that the year would be so heavily marked by the Corona pandemic. No one even began to think that we would spend most of our time at home and maintain all of our social and professional contacts digitally. It was and is a challenging time for all of us, and yet we look back on a successful year because a lot happened. Although some things came differently than we still thought in 2019.

Three. "Let me be, grant me the request, in your league the third" - to sum it up with Friedrich Schiller's words from his work "Die Bürgschaft". Since February 2020, Steffen Marx has been enriching the DB Netz AG - Endowed Professorship for Civil Engineering, Steffen Marx has enriched the Institute of Concrete Structures and strengthened our team with his know-how. Some may think of Erich Kästner's comedy of errors "Three Men in the Snow" or one or the other possibly of Gotthold Ephraim Lessing's three rings in "Nathan the Wise". But in the end it will not be too literary, but scientific, empirical, interdisciplinary, methodical and instructive.

Two. In order to be able to ensure a smooth transition and to preserve the continuity of the successful research work, the clarification of the succession for the professorship of solid construction was an important aspect. History teaches us that the topic of "succession" has always been a difficult one: There is, for example, the British monarchy and Prince Charles' eternal wait for the throne. Or the surprising and unprecedented resignation of Pope Benedict XVI and the replacement by Pope Francis. However, succession planning in companies and at universities is anything but simple and not a foregone conclusion. Since the extensive work in teaching and research should neither suffer nor diminish in performance, the decision was made in favor of a longer transition period for the holder of the professorship in solid construction. Thanks to the endowed professorship, there is now this transitional phase of around four and a half years.

One. Now we can name many topics on which we are working with a focus and perhaps also successfully. Carbon reinforced concrete is certainly the biggest topic. But research on impact and multi-axiality is also one of those that has been worked on at the institute for a long time. Now engineering structures and wind turbines have just been added to the list. What sounds like many topics is actually "one". With determination, but also with a certain courage, we are pursuing - despite the current obstacles - the goal of making the world, above all, a great deal more sustainable, but also better, lighter, simpler and perhaps more beautiful.

We would like to thank our employees for the work they have done and for the work they still have to do, because without each and every one of them we would not be where we are now and we would not get where we want to get.

Manfred Curbach, Ulrich Häußler-Combe and Steffen Marx