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The Chairman of the Foundation Council, Minister of State for Culture Bernd Neumann, emphasised after the election of the new President: "Hermann Parzinger is a world-renowned scientist and at the same time a great communicator and moderator. At the German Archaeological Institute, he has proven himself to be a prudent yet assertive moderniser and he knows like no other how to turn science into public knowledge. He has long been highly respected as an international co-operation partner and is an active member of numerous national and international academies. He is very familiar with the SPK through his membership of the Foundation's Advisory Board, which he has chaired since 2006. I am convinced that Hermann Parzinger, as the new President of the SPK, will lead this largest and most important cultural institution in our country successfully into the future with skill, energy and vision."

At its meeting today, the Board of Trustees also decided to appoint a search committee to appoint a successor to the Director General of the National Museums in Berlin, Prof Dr Peter-Klaus Schuster.

Born in Munich, the 48-year-old Hermann Parzinger studied pre- and early history, medieval history and provincial Roman archaeology in Munich, Saarbrücken and Ljubljana before completing his habilitation at the age of 31 while working as a university assistant at the Ludwig Maximilian University of Munich with a thesis on the "Chronology and Cultural History of the Neolithic, Copper and Early Bronze Age between the Carpathians and the Middle Taurus". His field of research extends geographically from the Iberian Peninsula to Inner Asia and chronologically from the Neolithic to the beginning of the Early Middle Ages. In recent years, his work has focussed primarily on Turkey, Iran, Central Asia and Siberia.

He initially worked at the German Archaeological Institute from 1990 to 1994 as Second Director of the Romano-Germanic Commission in Frankfurt/Main. In 1995, he was entrusted with the establishment of the DAI's newly founded Eurasia Department in Berlin. During his time as Director of this department, he was also appointed Honorary Professor of Prehistory and Early History (Prehistoric Archaeology) at the Free University of Berlin in 1996 and in 1998 he was the first archaeologist to be awarded the prestigious Leibniz Prize of the German Research Foundation. His appointment as President of the German Archaeological Institute followed in 2003. As President of the DAI, Hermann Parzinger further expanded the Institute, modernised its organisational structure and introduced new management methods.

Hermann Parzinger has been actively involved in research excavations throughout his career. In 2000, for example, he succeeded in starting another new major project in Iran. He also led the German-Russian expedition that discovered the untouched tomb of a Scythian prince from the 7th century BC in the southern Siberian republic of Tuva in July 2001. From July to October 2007, the National Museums in Berlin, in co-operation with the DAI, will present a selection of these finds together with other outstanding discoveries of recent years in the Martin-Gropius-Bau. Last summer, Parzinger's research attracted attention with the discovery of a Scythian ice mummy in the Mongolian Altaj.

The multilingual archaeologist is well acquainted with the Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation through his membership of the foundation's advisory board, which he has chaired since 2006. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation is one of the largest and most important cultural institutions in the world. Established in 1957, the foundation, which is representative of the state as a whole, is funded 75% by the federal government and 25% by the federal states. The Prussian Cultural Heritage Foundation includes the National Museums in Berlin as well as the Berlin State Library, the Secret State Archives of Prussian Cultural Heritage, the Ibero-American Institute and the State Institute for Music Research with the Museum of Musical Instruments. The Federal Government Commissioner for Culture and the Media, Minister of State Neumann, is Chairman of the Board of Trustees.