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The Next Big Piece of the Puzzle

  • Vision

The Dieter Schwarz Foundation expands its commitment to the further development of the educational campus – and thus initiates the next phase on the path toward Heilbronn 3.0.

Reflecting on the development of TUM Campus Heilbronn, the idea of a jigsaw puzzle is an apt metaphor: piece by piece, a visionary picture has been coming together since the opening four years ago. In the fall of 2022, those responsible for this development now unveiled another centerpiece that links many things and makes even more possible. 

 

“The new endowment agreement for the further expansion of TUM in Heilbronn fits seamlessly into our plan to establish a powerhouse here for shaping the digital transformation,” says Prof. Helmut Krcmar, founding dean (2018-2020) and representative of the president for the TUM Campus Heilbronn. The Dieter Schwarz Foundation intends to finance 10 additional professorships with a minimum term of 30 years for the academic center on the Neckar River – and thus primarily advance the fields of data science and artificial intelligence. The necessary equipment and infrastructure are part of the funding. In accordance with the TUM Fundraising Code of Conduct, there are no conditions attached.

An Education Location for the Digital Age

“For the Digital Age” is the motto of the initiative. Inspired by the construction of the AI Innovation Park Heilbronn – a lighthouse project worth millions – the TUM Heilbronn Data Science Center is now being built on the educational campus. The previous pillars of TUM in Heilbronn – digital transformation, family businesses and information engineering – are thus supplemented by a fourth, which fits perfectly into the academic profile and mission of the educational campus: to teach interdisciplinary skills at the interface of management, technology, and computer science.

 

At the same time, this fourth pillar reflects the Dieter Schwarz Foundation’s goal of creating real added value for the region’s economy. Prof. Reinhold Geilsdörfer, managing director of the foundation, confirmed this: “Our aim is to accompany the digital transformation in the region, to support transformation processes, and to promote the young talent required for this. The past has shown how well this works in cooperation with TUM.”

"Our vision ‘Heilbronn 3.0’ is moving a great deal closer with the new foundation contract."

- Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, President of the Technical University of Munich

During the press conference, TUM President Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann expressed similar satisfaction regarding the partnership with the foundation: “Its civic responsibility and its smart structural-policy approach to the development of the Heilbronn economic region are an excellent match for our own striving for quality.” He added that the university had found an ideal partner in the Dieter Schwarz Foundation – for the training of future-oriented talent and for the successful design of market-oriented innovation processes, as well as in the area of research.

Research with International Appeal

If you want to set global standards as a university location, you have to convince people with research at the cutting edge. TUM and the foundation agree on this, too. That is why the new contract provides a fresh impetus for science on campus – with a focus on long-term excellence and international appeal: the Dieter Schwarz Fellowship is intended to bring excellent professors from all over the world to Heilbronn and, as fellows of the world-renowned TUM Institute for Advanced Study, build a bridge to the Garching Campus. The Dieter Schwarz Courageous Research Grant will also be established to promote courageous project ideas. In global competition, top international talents will thus be given the opportunity to tackle promising “High Risk – High Gain” research projects on the topic of digitalization and sustainability in collaboration with TUM. Prof. Helmut Krcmar sees this as a central building block of campus development: “This signals that our focus is on the global impact of our research and that we are interested in using data science for the really big issues.”

The renewed expansion of TUM Campus Heilbronn is intended, among other things, to prepare the future for the topic of “digital twins.” This is because the mapping of real objects and contexts through high-resolution simulations is considered one of the key technologies of digitalization. At the chair of Prof. David Wuttke, research is being conducted into ways of using algorithms and machines to model optimization processes. If the math works out, it will be possible to rethink supply chains or entire supply systems in cities, for example. The newly founded TUM Heilbronn Data Science Center is to become a central point of contact for such experiments in the future. 

An Overview of the Expansion of Tum Campus Heilbronn:

  • Ten new endowed professorships
  • Establishment of the cross-faculty TUM Heilbronn Data Science Center
  • Dieter Schwarz Fellowship (international visiting professorships) 
  • Dieter Schwarz Courageous Research Grant (research funding)
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