Joint research projects play a key role in actualizing the „Stuttgarter Weg” (Stuttgart Way) of interdisciplinary and integrative cooperation that is embedded in the University of Stuttgart’s mission statement. To realise the vision of „Intelligent Systems for a Sustainable Society, the University of Stuttgart supports numerous joint research groups that cut across departments and disciplines. Scientists from different departments network to focus on university-wide research priorities and attract funding for new coordinated joint research projects. For many of these joint research projects, participation by external cooperation partners contributes importantly to the scientific work.
Joint research projects in the modeling and simulation technology area
Simulations and modeling pervade all of science and increasingly also industrial applications and daily life. Simulation technologies are among the high points of University of Stuttgart research activities. This is particularly manifest in the Cluster of Excellence Simulation Technologies (SimTech) which brings together excellence-level expertise from the fields of mathematics, engineering science, computing, and the natural sciences.
The Cluster of Excellence EXC 2075 Data-integrated Simulation Science received funding under the Federal Excellence Strategy. Researchers in the SimTech Excellence Cluster work on making computer simulations more powerful, forecasts more reliable, and visualizations even more precise. During the funding period, SimTech is integrated into the Stuttgart Center for Simulation Technology, the platform for efficient, comprehensive development of scientific methods and applications in all areas of the modelling and simulation sciences.
Spokesperson: Prof. Thomas Ertl
Director Stuttgart Center of Simulation Science
Duration: since 2007
Website: www.simtech.uni-stuttgart.de
Joint research projects in the field of new materials
IQST is an institute-spanning, interdisciplinary center in the quantum research field in which the Max-Planck Institute for Solid State Research, the University of Stuttgart, and the University of Ulm participate. The consortium’s aim is to make use of the enormous technological potential quantum physics holds for engineering applications. To this end, researchers from the natural sciences (especially physics and chemistry), mathematics, and the engineering sciences work together closely in the Center, simultaneously cooperating directly with industry.
Contact: Prof. Tilman Pfau
Institute: Institute of Physics (5)
Duration: since 2011
Website: www.iqst.org
In the SCoPE SRC physicists and engineers from a total of twelve institutes of the University of Stuttgart bundle their efforts and forge cooperative links with industry. Their goal is a complete the research and development cycle from photonic fundamentals to innovative developments and applications. The research themes range from quantum structures and quantum optics through metamaterials and plasmonics to application-centric task definitions in subwavelength optics as well as diffractive and active optics.
Contact: Prof. Harald Giessen
Institute: Institute of Physics (4)
Duration: since 2009
Website: www.scope.uni-stuttgart.de
The SRI for materials characterization and analysis grapples with questions of energy efficiency and resource planning and works in this area on the ever more complex technologies for manufacturing building component and infrastructure. A key core element in this is utilizing and, especially, characterizing materials that are optimized for specific applications.
Contact: Prof. Stefan Weihe
Institute: Institute for Materials Testing, Materials Science, and Strength of Materials (IMWF)
Duration: since 2016
Joint research projects in the field design and technology of lasting living spaces
The SRC for Architecture: Integrative Design and Adaptive Building” is an interdisciplinary network that bundles complementary research activities and competences in the university’s research priority area “Architecture and Adaptive Building”, and aims to interlink it with further research fields such as computer science, robotics, production and systems engineering, as well as the social and cultural sciences.
Contact: Prof. Achim Menges
Institute: Institut für Computerbasiertes Entwerfen und Baufertigung
Duration: Since 2017
Joint reserach projects in complex systems and communication
The center is dedicated to department-spanning and interdisciplinary research and teaching in systems biology. It aims to achieve a holistic system understanding by analyzing individual biological system components, with the ultimate goal of making the leap from a qualitatively descriptive to a quantitative, theory-based, predictive biology. A special attribute of the Center’s networked system biology activities at the University of Stuttgart is the close cooperation between the biological, engineering, and systems sciences.
Contact: Prof. Markus Morrison
Institute: Institute of Cell Biology and Immunology
Duration: since 2014
Website: www.centersysbio.uni-stuttgart.de
The Stuttgart Research Focus Language and Cognition is a facility established by the University of Stuttgart for the advancement of interdisciplinary research in the fields of linguistics and cognition. The focus is on a joint research project unique in the German-speaking realm that brings together theoretical linguistics (Institute of Linguistics) und computer linguistics (Institute of Natural Language Processing).
Spokesperson: Prof. Daniel Hole
Institute: Institute of Linguistics
Duration: since 2016
Website: www.ling.uni-stuttgart.de/forschung/srf/ [German only]
The Text Studies research center is dedicated to methodological reflection on new approaches in the text-oriented disciplines. Beyond that, it is expected to contribute techniques of textual analysis, description, and interpretation and to bridge the gaps between different text-based disciplines. The four areas of concentration are hermeneutics, material studies, digital humanities, and image.
Spokesperson: Prof. Sandra Richter
Institute: Institute of Literatures
Duration: since 2014
Website: www.ts.uni-stuttgart.de
Joint research groups in the field of integrated product and production design
The research campus ARENA2036 (Active Research Environment for the Next generation of Automobiles) builds a bridge between research and development in the areas of lightweight construction and innovative manufacturing technologies.
Contact: Dipl.-Ing. Peter Fröschle
Duration: since 2013
Website: www.arena2036.de [de]
The High-Performance Center Mass Personalization is a joint initiative of the University of Stuttgart with the Fraunhofer Institutes in Stuttgart. The goal is to develop cross-industry processes, production systems and new business models to produce personalized products, in cooperation with the
- industrial sectors for personalized assistance systems, medical technology and sports products,
- the fields of modularized construction, transformable vehicle concepts, and for consumer products and services
- in quality assurance, logistics and the production of personalized therapeutic products.
To achieve this, the Stuttgart Partnership Initiative Mass Personalization (SPI MP) has been established at the University of Stuttgart.
Duration of the High-Performance Center: since 2017
Contact: Prof. Peter Middendorf and Prof. Thomas Bauernhansl
Joint research projects for energy supply and the environment
Managing resources sustainably and efficiently – be they commodities, materials, energy, and water – is the subject of multi-faceted research at the University of Stuttgart. Many university departments and their partners contribute to it with innovative approaches and technologies.
In the WindForS wind energy research cluster, the University of Stuttgart, University of Tübingen, Technical University Munich, the Karlsruhe Institute of Technology, the Aalen and Esslingen universities of applied science, and the Baden-Wuerttemberg Center for Solar Energy and H2 Research bundle their expertise in the field of wind energy research. The consortium members cooperate both in research and the areas of graduate education, post-graduate training and continuing education.
Contact: Prof. Po Wen Cheng
Institute: Institute of Aircraft Design
Duration: since 2014
Website: http://www.windfors.de
The goal of the SPI STRise is studying problems of the energy transition more comprehensively in systems research and also to bring into the analyses social factors in addition to ecological and economical aspects. Partnering in this joint project with the University of Stuttgart are the Baden-Wuerttemberg Center for Solar Energy and H2 Research (ZSW) and the Institute of Engineering Thermodynamics (ITT) of the German Aerospace Center (DLR).
Contact: Prof. Kai Hufendiek
Institute: Institute of Energy Economics and the Rational Use of Energy
Duration: since 2015
Website: www.ier.uni-stuttgart.de/STRise
In 2015, SRP NUPUS emerged from the International Research Training Group (GRK) 1398 "Nonlinearities and Upscaling in Porous Media" (NUPUS), which was funded by the German Research Foundation (DFG) from 2007 to 2015. SRP "NUPUS" succeeded the cooperations established in GRK "NUPUS". From 2015 to 2018, SRP was funded by the University of Stuttgart and served as a platform for young scientists as well as for students to practice scientific exchange in the field of porous media.
In 2017, the German Research Foundation agreed to fund the Collaborative Research Center (SFB) 1313 "Interface-Driven Multi-Field Processes in Porous Media - Flow, Transport and Deformation". In the following, SRP "NUPUS" was incorporated into SFB 1313, which is now responsible for the continuation of the formerly developed visions. The cooperation agreements concluded by the University of Stuttgart within the SRP "NUPUS" with numerous national and international research institutions are still valid and are now also binding for SFB 1313. At the moment, all activities at the University of Stuttgart in the field of porous media are organized via SFB 1313. However, SRP still exists.
Contact: Prof. Rainer Helmig
Duration: since 2015
Website: SRP NUPUS
Joint research in the areas of technology concepts, contexts, and analysis
IZST unites various institutes of the University of Stuttgart, the University of Tübingen and partners from industry. The goal is to initiate cooperative research between the two universities in the medical technology field or expand by partnering with medical technology companies. In this way, IZST provides the ideal research environment for the combined medical technology [de] degree program offered by the two universities. IZST partners join in teaching the program course, also – and especially – in supervising student research. The Center offers graduate students a favorable research project environment.
Contact: Marion Fleischer
Institute: Institute of System Dynamics
Duration: since 2010
Website: IZST