At its 23rd public meeting on 20th February 2013 the Senate at the University of Stuttgart elected the Director of the Institut für Strahlwerkzeuge (IFSW) Prof. Thomas Graf as the new Vice Rector for Knowledge and Technology Transfer. In addition, it was with great approval that the Senate received the annual reports from the Rector Prof. Wolfram Ressel and Dr. Gabriele Hardtmann, Gender Equality Officer of the University.
Prof. Wolfram Ressel commented on the results of the Senate meeting: “I am delighted with the
broad consensus in the university committees to strategically expand the competitiveness of the
university using structural measures and personnel decisions. We have been able to acquire a new
Vice Rector for Knowledge and Technology Transfer in Prof. Thomas Graf, who will inspire new
momentum at the interface of science and business for the research campus of the University of
Stuttgart with his many years of international experience.“
Prof. Thomas Graf, newly elected Vice Rector for Knowledge and Technology Transfer underlined
this with the aim associated with his office as Vice Rector to strive for a new dimension in
research partnerships in Stuttgart in terms of quality: “We will use the special constellation that
exists at the location of the university of the four powers of university, extramural research
facilities, companies and society in order to sharpen the unique characteristics of our university.“
Annual report by the Rector
With a view to the balance sheet from the past year, Rector Prof. Wolfram Ressel underlined
that the University of Stuttgart had been successful in enhancing the image and competiveness of
the university in terms of quality in the field of research as well as in the areas of teaching and
further education. This finding is substantiated through numerous successes in research which were
able to be achieved in the last year.
“An important success was the renewed funding in the framework of the Excellence Initiative
II of the federal state and governments: our Cluster of Excellence SimTech as well as the Graduate
School GSaME impressed with their applications and secured themselves the top funding in Germany
for another five years“, according to Ressel.
In addition, Ressel reported on numerous research successes as in the top cluster competition
”Electromobility South-West“ by the Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and in the
competition by the BMBF research campus with the ARENA2036 (Active Research Environment for the
Next Generation of Automobiles). Milestones like the commissioning of the largest driving simulator
of its kind in a European research institute, the approval of the high performance computer Hermit
with a peak capacity of over 1 petaflop as well as a distinction for English linguistics by the
science council impressively demonstrate the research competence of the University of Stuttgart.
This also includes honours like the Leibniz Prize for Prof. Jörg Wrachtrup, the ERC Advanced Grant
for Prof. Hans-Joachim Werner, the ERC Starting Grant for Prof. Oliver Röhrle and the election of
Prof. Frank Allgöwer to become DFG Vice President.
Annual report Gender Equality Officer
Dr. Gabriele Hardtmann, Gender Equality Officer of the University, provided information in
her annual report to the effect that the University of Stuttgart was the state winner in the past
year due to its successes in the field of equal opportunities in the interuniversity
performance-oriented granting of funds. As a result of successes in equal opportunities she has
achieved in total a plus of almost two million Euros since 2008.
Furthermore, she reported on the equal opportunities plan 2013-2017 with its new targets set
by the faculties themselves for the proportion of women on all status and qualification levels. In
terms of professorships success was achieved in reaching the goal of 10% set for the end of 2012
for the whole university; in contrast, there was still much work to be done at mid-level with a
goal of 30% and also with the students with a goal of 40%.
A great step forwards for the Gender Equality Officer as a result meant the certification ”a
udit family-friendly university“ in summer 2012. Since then everything has been done to implement
the target agreements and to further advance the compatibility of studying and profession with
family tasks in the whole university.
Further information:
Dr. Hans-Herwig Geyer, University of Stuttgart, University Communication,
Tel. 0711/685-82555, Email: hans-herwig.geyer (at) hkom.uni-stuittgart.de
