The Berlin Mathematical School, a graduate school funded under the so-called "Excellence Initiative", can look back on a successful first year. Begun with only a handful of students in Winter Semester 2006/07, the program for Ph.D. students was established at a record-breaking pace and is now running as planned with great success.

The cooperation agreement between the three participating universities, FU, HU, and TU Berlin, forsees a rotation every two years in the chairmanship of the BMS.  After the very successful phase of building up the Berlin Mathematical School, the first rotation has now taken place:

On December 1, 2007, Prof. Jürg Kramer of HU Berlin succeeded Prof. Günter M. Ziegler of TU Berlin as chair of the Berlin Mathematical School.  Ziegler had been chair since the founding of the BMS in June 2006.  The rotation of chairs occured six months earlier than originally planned, in order that Ziegler can concentrate on his role as coordinator of the "Year of Mathematics" in 2008.

At the BMS faculty meeting on November 9, 2007, Kramer, who had been one of the Vice-chairs of the BMS, was unanimously elected as Ziegler's successor. The participants of the meeting expressed their gratitude to Ziegler for his work. The unanimous votes, for the new chair as well as for the new executive board, are once again proof of the excellent cooperation between the mathematics departments at the Berlin universities. This cooperation forms the basis for the various "excellence" projects run by Berlin's mathematicians.