December 6, 2022: Nikolaus said “danke” again

Like every year, Nikolaus visited us and left copies of himself for everyone. Again, the size of our group has declined, as planned. But we are still strong! Not surprisingly, the number of papers we have published this year is lower than in the past, but the six papers (last year: seven) have a cumulative impact factor of 52.1 (last year: 44.5) and an average IF of 8.7 (last year 7.4). We do not believe in the importance of journal impact factors, but this is the current way to estimate "quality" of publications. And we do agree: while the quantity further decreased, the quality further increased. But more important than papers are people, and this year again has seen a strong group of dedicated young researchers pursuing their scientific and career goals. We have been profiting from their enthusiasm, dedication, creativity, persistence, reliability – small wonder Nikolaus is happy and says "thank you"!