Scientific Technology & Computing

One Service Unit for All Laboratories

Head: Sebastian Schröder

Organizational Structure and Core Service Areas
Activities Beyond Laboratory Settings
Institutional Impact

With the establishment of the Scientific Technology & Computing (STC) unit, all laboratory- and technology-related activities of the Institute are now consolidated under a single organizational umbrella for the first time. This strategic restructuring marks a significant step toward professionalizing laboratory operations, harmonizing processes, and creating an integrated scientific service landscape that benefits the entire Institute. By unifying previously dispersed responsibilities, STC enhances efficiency, fosters collaboration, and ensures that state-of-the-art methodological and technical capacities are consistently available to support the Institute's research mission.

Under the leadership of Sebastian Schröder, STC serves as a central scientific service unit whose overarching goal is to enable and facilitate excellent research. It provides comprehensive support across all stages of the research lifecycle—from conceptualization and study planning to data acquisition, data processing, and computational analysis. This integrated support model ensures that researchers can fully leverage the Institute’s unique infrastructure and maintain high standards of reproducibility, technical rigor, and operational reliability.

Team Profile: Scientific Technology & Computing
STC's mission is to make "special things possible"—whether within the Institute's laboratories or outside in the real world in various environments. STC's service philosophy emphasizes responsiveness, technical and scientific expertise, and collaborative problem-solving. The STC team supports researchers in their use of the existing infrastructure and is also ready to adapt or expand it when project requirements demand novel solutions. The result is a service environment in which scientific ambition is not constrained by technical or organizational limitations. Instead, STC actively enables groundbreaking research by ensuring that the Institute's technological foundation is robust, agile, and ready for the future.

Organizational Structure and Core Service Areas

STC's activities are organized into four interrelated service domains, each of which contributes essential expertise:

Lab and Study Management
STC assumes comprehensive responsibility for coordinating laboratory operations and supporting empirical studies. This includes the allocation and maintenance of laboratory spaces, the development of standardized operating procedures, the coordination of study logistics, and the alignment of laboratory workflows across research groups. By establishing clear quality standards and streamlined processes, STC reduces the administrative burden on researchers and enables the Institute to run complex, multi-method studies with greater reliability and efficiency.
Technical Lab Support
The STC group provides extensive technical expertise, ensuring that experimental setups, specialized hardware, and measurement devices are properly configured, calibrated, maintained, and repaired whenever necessary. STC's technical specialists develop custom hardware solutions, integrate new devices into existing systems, and ensure compliance with safety and operational standards. This role is especially crucial for innovative experimental paradigms that require precise technical coordination and bespoke equipment solutions.
Data and Programming
Software programmers in STC support the full software development lifecycle of experimental code and research applications. Services include the development of new experimental programs, hardware-related programming, customization of existing software tools, and version-controlled documentation via Git. The unit also coordinates software procurement and licensing in collaboration with the Central IT unit. This expertise ensures that research groups have access to reliable, well-documented, and adaptable digital tools, reducing barriers to implementing complex experimental designs.
Scientific Computing
To meet the increasing computational demands of modern behavioral and cognitive research, STC provides access to robust computing resources and specialized support in scientific data processing. This includes the management of high‑performance computing environments, optimization of data workflows, and consultation on reproducible analytical pipelines. By offering this centralized computing expertise, STC enables researchers to efficiently process large datasets, run computationally intensive models, and adopt advanced analytical methods.

Activities Beyond Laboratory Settings

In addition to supporting traditional laboratory studies, STC facilitates research activities in non-laboratory environments. This includes the planning and execution of field studies, mobile data collection, and experimental procedures requiring unconventional or challenging settings. Such flexibility enables researchers to explore behavior in naturalistic contexts and pursue innovative methodological approaches that extend beyond the Institute's physical labs.

*Figure 1.* Arrival of the HD-Rover housing the 1.5 T MRI scanner at the Institute in January 2026. STC played a major rule in purchasing and preparing this important addition to the Institute's scanning facilities that will be used to acquire data "in the wild."

Image: MPI for Human Development

*Figure 1.* Arrival of the HD-Rover housing the 1.5 T MRI scanner at the Institute in January 2026. STC played a major rule in purchasing and preparing this important addition to the Institute's scanning facilities that will be used to acquire data "in the wild."

Image: MPI for Human Development

Institutional Impact

*Figure 2.* STC team member carrying study equipment up a mountain in the Alps. The study examines the psychological processes involved in planning and executing a sequence of whole body movements when skiing through a field of moguls.

Image: MPI for Human Development

*Figure 2.* STC team member carrying study equipment up a mountain in the Alps. The study examines the psychological processes involved in planning and executing a sequence of whole body movements when skiing through a field of moguls.

Image: MPI for Human Development

Since its establishment at the beginning of 2025, STC has played a transformative role in strengthening the Institute's scientific infrastructure. By consolidating technological competencies, introducing professionalized management practices, and providing integrated technical-scientific services, the unit has improved operational consistency and created substantial synergies across research centers and groups. STC ensures that the Institute's laboratories remain at the forefront of methodological innovation and that researchers can rely on high-quality, dependable support at any stage of their projects. The STC team drives the conversion and expansion of the laboratory infrastructure, continually anticipates and plans ahead for the right research infrastructure for future research questions and is in constant and close contact with scientists from all parts of the Institute in order to put their studies into practice.

The team's aim is to bring scientific technology out of the lab and into the public eye through a variety of events. In close collaboration with Communications & Design, Central IT, and Facility & Technical Operations units, STC enthusiastically organize projects such as the Long Night of Sciences and exhibits for the MS Wissenschaft exhibition, and introduce schoolchildren to the MPIB's work on excursions to the Institute.

STC aims to bring scientific technology out of the lab and into the public eye through a variety of events. In close collaboration with the Communications & Design, Central IT, and Facility & Technical Operations units, the team enthusiastically organizes projects such as the Long Night of Sciences and exhibits for the MS Wissenschaft exhibition, and introduces schoolchildren to its work on visits to the Institute.