The Technical University of Munich has once again been placed among the world’s leading universities. In the latest Times Higher Education World University Ranking, TUM ranks 25th worldwide, making it the highest-ranked university in the European Union.

This result follows TUM’s strong performance in the QS World University Rankings, where the university also ranked among the world’s top 25 earlier this year. Together, the two rankings underscore TUM’s strong international standing in research, teaching, innovation, and collaboration.

The results reflect the dedication of the entire TUM community. Researchers, students, faculty, staff, and partners contribute to advancing knowledge and developing solutions to pressing challenges through their interdisciplinary work.

The TUM School of Management is an integral part of this ecosystem, contributing through research and education at the intersection of management and technology, as well as through close collaboration within TUM and with partners worldwide.

The latest results highlight the strength of TUM’s interdisciplinary approach and global reach, reinforcing its position among the world’s leading universities.

In the 2027 QS Business Masters Rankings, TUM School of Management's Masters program in Finance and Information Management was rated for the first time and ended up on place 31st among the 286 ranked Master of Finance programs globally, which makes it the Top 1 in Germany. The Master’s in Management & Technology was able to maintain its position as 28th out of 256 programs in the Master in Management category worldwide and therefore remains one of the Top 3 programs in Germany.

TUM School of Management has demonstrated its excellence, with both programs ranking above average across all five evaluation categories: employability, thought leadership, value for money, alumni outcomes, and diversity. This recognition highlights our dedication to providing a world-class educational experience that prepares students for successful careers, contributes to cutting-edge management research, delivers strong value for investment, supports graduates in achieving outstanding professional outcomes, and fosters a diverse and inclusive community that enriches learning and innovation.

We are honored by this recognition, which underscores the strength of our interdisciplinary approach in bringing together diverse expertise and perspectives to accelerate sustainable innovation and shape future ecosystems.

The CEFS at TUM School of Management, led by its scientific directors Ann-Kristin Achleitner, Reiner Braun and Christoph Kaserer, hosted the European Private Equity Research Symposium on 10 and 11 September, together with its partner the Institute for Private Capital. Munich joins Chapel Hill, Oxford and Singapore in the series.

The format is the point. Every paper is followed by a panel that takes it to the people who act on it.

Research presentations by Christian Lundblad (UNC Kenan-Flagler) on buyout fund exits and distributions, Ludovic Phalippou (University of Oxford) on continuation vehicles as strategic asset transfers, Juha Joenväärä (Aalto University) on benchmarking private credit, and Florencio Lopez-de-Silanes (SKEMA Business School) on private equity intermediary performance reports. For the keynote, Tim Jenkinson (University of Oxford) on whether private equity firms allocate capital according to manager skill.

Four panels led by experts in practice:

Liquidity and Risk Premia in Private Markets, moderated by Ferdinand Seibert, with Malte Frederichs (YIELCO Investments), Mark Jansen (University of Utah) and Roger Vincent (Summation Capital).

Who Sets the Price? Valuation, Governance and Trust in GP-Led Deals, moderated by Stefan Morkötter (University of St. Gallen), with Oleg Gredil (Tulane University), Andreas Kumeth (PAI Partners) and Christoph Schemmerl (Golding Capital Partners).

The Evolving Role of Private Credit, moderated by Greg Brown, with Jason Amoratis (MSCI), Raluca Jochmann (Allianz Global Investors), and Verena Kempe (KENFO).

Private Markets in the Age of AI, moderated by Reiner Braun, with Andrea Carnelli Dompe (Tamarix), Borja Fernández Tamayo (Sagard), and Julien Perez (Bpifrance).

Organised by Reiner Braun and Sara Boni at the CEFS, with Greg Brown and Sarah Franks at the Institute for Private Capital. Thanks to every speaker, panelist, and chair, and to everyone who traveled to Munich and kept the conversation going through the breaks. Thank you also to Allianz Asset Management and the UAI Foundation, whose support made this event possible.

Technical University of Munich climbs the global rankings in entrepreneurship research!

In the 2026 TCU Global University Entrepreneurship Research Productivity Rankings, TUM is listed among the Top 2 universities worldwide for research output in leading entrepreneurship journals.

This year’s result marks a jump from fourth to second within just one year, highlighting the growing influence of entrepreneurship research at TUM School of Management, and in particular, TUM Entrepreneurship Research Institute.

The ranking, compiled by the Texas Christian University - Neeley School of Business, evaluates publications in the field’s three top journals: Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), and Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ).

A strong recognition of TUM’s global impact and our commitment at TUM School of Management to advancing evidence-based entrepreneurship research.

TUM is No. 1 in Germany and among the top 5 in the EU, and the top 50 in the world!

In the latest edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, Technical University of Munich ranked 45th worldwide.

TUM has once again proven to be a University of Excellence in Germany. More than 2,500 universities are ranked every year; the top 1,000 are published.

As the management school of TUM, we are committed to excellence and innovation, and we are honored to be among the 1% of the world's top business schools that hold Triple Crown accreditation.

The annual Academic Ranking of World Universities, produced by ShanghaiRanking, assesses universities' research performance based on the number of scientific papers published in top journals such as Nature and Science, researchers' citation frequency, and the number of Nobel laureates and Fields Medal winners.

To the ranking: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2026

Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Christine Eckert on joining the Excellence Cluster TransforM!

Prof. Eckert brings a strong quantitative and consumer-focused perspective, with research interests in using data to understand how individuals interact with technology and make decisions.

Her research examines how technology can assist consumers in navigating an increasingly complex world and making more informed decisions.

“What excites me about TransforM is the opportunity to work with researchers from different disciplines and contribute to shaping technology’s impact on society,” says Prof. Eckert.

Prof. Dr. Ziyue Li hosted the 1st International Workshop on 𝗟𝗮𝗿𝗴𝗲 𝗟𝗮𝗻𝗴𝘂𝗮𝗴𝗲 𝗠𝗼𝗱𝗲𝗹𝘀 𝗘𝗺𝗽𝗼𝘄𝗲𝗿𝗶𝗻𝗴 𝗙𝘂𝘁𝘂𝗿𝗲 𝗜𝗻𝗱𝘂𝘀𝘁𝗿𝘆 in Heilbronn on 20–21 July 2026.

Large Language Models are not only a technical shift. They are reshaping how firms organize decisions, structure processes, integrate data, and manage the boundary between human judgment and automated action - questions at the very core of what we teach and research in management.

The workshop had 1 keynote, 8 talks, 1 panel, 1 industry tour at the Innovation Park Artificial Intelligence (IPAI), with speakers from HKUST, Virginia Tech, TU Dortmund, BMW Group, ZF Group, ZETA GmbH, Schneider Electric, AutoScout24, AS-Schneider Group, Lithos AI, AWS, Meta, and Microsoft.

The insights
💡 Operationalizing LLMs in industry is a data, process, and integration challenge - not primarily a modeling one.
💡 Small open models with careful training and task design can match proprietary frontier performance.
💡 Agentic AI in production requires safety-gated execution and meaningful human oversight.
💡 Digital twins become useful when the world model reasons back - not when it simply visualizes.

Stay tuned for a workshop White Paper mapping industry's burning challenges to academia's proven LLM solutions, which will follow this autumn.

The Swiss National Science Foundation (SNSF) and the German Research Foundation (DFG) are funding a new joint research project by the TUM Professorship of Marketing & Technology at the TUM School of Management and the Chair of Technology Marketing at the Department of Management, Technology, and Economics at ETH Zurich under the WEAVE scheme.

Over the next three years, researchers from the TUM School of Management and ETH Zurich will investigate how people perceive time and space in immersive virtual environments. Immersive environments do not simply reproduce reality; they can reshape how long a moment feels and how near or far things seem. Understanding these mechanisms is increasingly important as virtual spaces become a growing part of how people interact, consume, and work.

The project brings together perspectives from consumer psychology, technology, and human-computer interaction to examine the cognitive mechanisms underlying time and space perception in virtual reality and their implications for the design, evaluation, and regulation of immersive environments.

The project is led by Prof. Dr. David Finken, Dr. Thomas Scheurer, and Prof. Dr. Florian von Wangenheim and reflects a close research collaboration between the TUM School of Management and ETH Zurich.

We congratulate the project team on securing this funding and look forward to the insights and contributions that will emerge from this cross-border collaboration between Germany and Switzerland.

TUM is once again among the top 10 in the Digital Leaders in Higher Education rankings, the only university in the European Union to do so

TUM is the world’s No.2 Leader in Computer Science, No.5 in Digital Entrepreneurship, and No.8 in AI, tech & digital education!

• Which universities best prepare their students to work with digital technologies?
• Which graduates contribute to the innovative strength of the digital economy?
• Who is founding tech start-ups or driving the transformation of large companies?

TUM ranks:

• 2nd place for Computer Science
• 5th for Digital Entrepreneurship
• 8th for AI, Tech & Digital Education
• 14th for Digital Transformation Management

The TUM School of Management is actively involved in various initiatives, demonstrating how digitalization is a core part of our identity. We take pride in our steadfast dedication to excellence and innovation in the digital landscape!

We are proud to have hosted this year’s MBA World Summit as well as this year’s leadership conference.

MBA World Summit 2026

MBA students from around the globe gathered at our campus in Heilbronn to exchange ideas and discuss key topics – from robotics to social innovation.

Leadership Conference 2026

Leaders from across Germany joined us to gain fresh inspiration. The conference featured inspiring keynotes on topics such as female leadership and personal development.

Thank you to QX Quarterly Crossing GmbH for this great collaboration!

This June, Prof. David Wuttke hosted the 2nd Supply Chain Finance Week 2026 at TUM Campus Heilbronn, bringing together leading academics for an inspiring exchange on the future of Supply Chain Finance.

A key highlight of the week was the Supply Chain & Finance Symposium, featuring a distinguished international lineup of scholars who shared insights on current trends, emerging challenges, and the future direction of the field. The keynote was delivered by Prof. Chris Tang, Distinguished Professor Emeritus at UCLA Anderson School of Management.

The symposium also included break-out sessions on a question of real-world relevance: How can Supply Chain Finance contribute to advancing the UN Sustainable Development Goals? The discussions were collaborative, in-depth, and thought-provoking.

Another highlight was the “Meet your Co-Authors” session, which created dedicated space for individual exchange, ongoing research projects, and new academic collaborations.

The Ph.D. and Young Scholar Pitch Session brought great energy to the room, with doctoral students and early-career researchers presenting their work in concise three-minute pitches that sparked curiosity and discussion.

Furthermore, the participants discussed the 17 Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) set by the United Nations (UN) in depth. The focus lay especially on Goal number 13, “Climate Action,” which urges UN members to take urgent action to combat climate change and its impacts.

The week concluded with a Doctoral Day under the theme “Publishing Supply Chain Finance Research”, offering young scholars the opportunity to learn from and connect with experienced researchers. Sessions explored what defines impactful empirical Operations Management research, how modelling work can generate meaningful insights, and which mechanisms are central to research in supply chain management and finance.

A few key takeaways became clear throughout the week:

• Supply Chain Finance research continues to raise the bar in rigor and depth of insight.
• The UN Sustainable Development Goals offer important opportunities for SCF research, but each goal requires deliberate strategies and mechanisms.
• Supply Chain Finance is gaining genuine global attention.
• AI and large language models are becoming increasingly relevant to the future of SCF research.

A big thank you to all participants, speakers, and contributors who made this week such a success. It was a pleasure to exchange ideas, build connections, and shape the future of Supply Chain Finance — together.

Top Global University: TUM ranks 25th worldwide in the QS World University Rankings 2027

The Technical University of Munich is not only among the top 25 universities worldwide, but also takes the lead as the highest-ranked university in the European Union.
It also remains the number one university in Germany, for the 12th year in a row.

This recognition is a strong affirmation of our mission:
uniting engineering, natural sciences, medicine, economics, and social sciences to shape the innovation ecosystems of tomorrow.

At TUM School of Management, we are proud to be part of this success. We connect management and technology, train future leaders, and work closely with industry, policymakers, and startups to drive impact.

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) is honored to welcome Roberta Metsola, President of the European Parliament, on June 19, 2026.

Event:  Meet the President: Democracy at Work in the European Parliament
Time:  11:45 AM – 12:45 PM
Location:  Audimax, TUM Main Campus

Moderated by the TUM Speakers Series, President Metsola will share insights into the functioning of European democracy and engage directly with the audience.

This event offers a unique opportunity to experience European politics up close and take part in an open exchange on current challenges and developments within the European Union.

TUM ranks among the top European universities for start-ups!

TUM ranks 4th among very large universities for the number of start-ups founded by researchers (38 in 2025), trailing only the University of Oxford, Imperial College London, and the University of Cambridge. With 235 start-ups founded by students and alumni, TUM ranks 8th overall—and is the only very large German university in Europe’s top 20.

TUM stands out due to its strong entrepreneurial ecosystem, which combines excellent research, industry collaboration, and targeted support programs for founders (such as UnternehmerTUM).

A key factor in TUM’s high ranking is the large number of successful companies founded by its students, researchers, and alumni. Many start-ups have grown into internationally active businesses, contributing to economic growth and technological advancement.

“Over the past few years, we have implemented numerous initiatives at TUM specifically designed to strengthen the entrepreneurial spirit in our university’s research and teaching,” says TUM President Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann.

We are very proud of our students, alumni, and researchers!

TUM School of Management students are extremely satisfied with the teaching and study conditions in their management studies. In the new ranking by the Center for Higher Education Development (CHE), they give their school in Munich and Heilbronn the best marks.

In business administration, TUM School of Management is at the top of almost all categories. Especially high scores were reached in the category “digital teaching” in Munich (4.6 stars). In Heilbronn, students awarded 4.6 stars for the “rooms” on our modern campus. The categories “variety of courses” and “organization of studies” are praised at both campuses.

Germany's largest university ranking gathers facts and opinions from 120,000 students. The CHE compares individual subjects at German-speaking universities, this time in economics. The ranking is primarily intended to provide prospective students with orientation. The universities are rated across numerous categories on a scale of 1 to 5 stars.

See the full ranking here: https://studiengaenge.zeit.de/ranking

Paul Fornoff, a student in the Master’s in Management and Technology at the TUM School of Management, got elected Global President of the QTEM Student Association. He has been a member of the QTEM network since 2024.

In his role as Global President, Paul Fornoff supports the coordination of student activities across the QTEM network and works with the international executive team on initiatives aimed at strengthening QTEM’s global presence and fostering engagement with students and strategic partners.

“I am honoured to take on this role and excited to serve the QTEM community. Together with my team, we are launching initiatives to strengthen our global presence and engage the next generation of students and partners,” says Paul Fornoff.

His appointment reflects the active involvement of TUM School of Management students within the QTEM network and their contribution to its continued development.

As of March 1, 2026, Katinka Kleinheinz has assumed the position of Managing Director at the TUM School of Management. She has been part of the School since 2017 and most recently served as Director of Undergraduate and Postgraduate Education, where she made significant contributions to the development and strategic direction of our study programs.

With her extensive experience and deep understanding of the School’s structures and priorities, she is excellently prepared for her new role. We warmly congratulate her on this appointment and look forward to continuing our successful collaboration.

The Technical University of Munich has once again secured the prestigious designation as a University of Excellence. This marks TUM's fourth consecutive recognition in Germany’s most prestigious research and university funding competition, highlighting its outstanding achievements in research, teaching, innovation, and societal impact.

Awarded jointly by the German Research Foundation (DFG) and the German Council of Science and Humanities (Wissenschaftsrat), this honor recognizes universities whose strategic vision and research excellence set national standards. TUM has held this title without interruption since the program began in 2006, reaffirming its status as one of Germany’s most influential and innovative academic institutions.

TUM School of Management contributes to TUM’s excellence mission

At the TUM School of Management, research and teaching are deeply rooted in the intersection of management and technology. Through its interdisciplinary approach, the TUM School of Management plays a key role in advancing TUM’s mission to foster solution‑oriented research and develop talent capable of navigating the technological and societal transformations of the 21st century.

Participation in the Cluster of Excellence “TransforM”

As part of the university’s excellence strategy, the TUM School of Management actively participates in the newly established Cluster of Excellence “TransforM – the Munich Center for Transformative Technologies and Social Change.”

The cluster unites researchers from social sciences, engineering, natural sciences, and technology fields to explore how emerging technologies reshape organizations, markets, and society — and how these changes can be managed responsibly. With its expertise, the TUM School of Management contributes essential perspectives on the societal effects of technological change and enhances the cluster’s interdisciplinary approach.

A commitment to excellence in the years ahead

The renewed recognition as a University of Excellence motivates the TUM community — including the TUM School of Management — to continue striving for excellence in research, teaching, and societal engagement. With its interdisciplinary foundation and strong international focus, the School remains committed to advancing knowledge that tackles complex global challenges and promotes sustainable innovation.

In the 2025 TCU Global University Entrepreneurship Research Productivity Rankings, TUM is listed among the Top 4 universities worldwide for research output in leading entrepreneurship journals. 

This year’s result marks a jump from #7 to #4 within just one year, highlighting the growing influence of entrepreneurship research at TUM School of Management, and in particular, TUM Entrepreneurship Research Institute. 
Congratulations, Oliver Alexy, Nicola Breugst, Hana Milanov, Holger Patzelt, Anne Tryba, Miriam Bird, Frank-Martin Belz, Claudia Doblinger, Hanna Hottenrott, Reiner Braun, Siddharth Vedula. 

The ranking, compiled by the Texas Christian University - M.J. Neeley School of Business, evaluates publications in the field’s three top journals: Journal of Business Venturing (JBV), Entrepreneurship Theory and Practice (ETP), Strategic Entrepreneurship Journal (SEJ).

Using a clear methodology, one count per article, based on authors’ primary affiliation and without adjusting for faculty size, the ranking provides the only research-focused comparison of global entrepreneurship programs.

A strong recognition of TUM’s global impact and our commitment to advancing evidence-based entrepreneurship research.

➡️ To the ranking: www.neeley.tcu.edu/Academic-Departments/Entrepreneurship-and-Innovation/Global-Research-Rankings

 

We are delighted to share that our Distinguished Affiliated Professor Ann-Kristin Achleitner has been appointed by Federal Finance Minister Lars Klingbeil to the newly established Investitions- und Innovationsbeirat (Advisory Council on Investment and Innovation).
This high-level council will advise the Minister on implementing and monitoring Germany’s unprecedented €500 billion investment package for infrastructure and climate neutrality.
Prof. Achleitner has been shaping the field of entrepreneurial finance for decades — she held the Chair of Entrepreneurial Finance at TUM School of Management from its establishment until 2020 and has been Scientific Co-Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies, TU München since 2003.
Beyond academia, she brings extensive industry experience as a supervisory board member at several leading DAX companies.
With her expertise across academia, consulting, and industry, Prof. Achleitner will bring valuable insights to shaping Germany’s sustainable and innovative future. 

 We are proud she continues to contribute to TUM School of Management as Scientific Co-Director of CEFS and as a TUM Distinguished Affiliated Professor. 

This highest honor of the GOR recognizes his outstanding contributions to Operations Research, especially in the field of stochastic inventory management. Prof. Minner is internationally recognized for advancing supplychain and logistics research through his highly cited publications and leadership in key academic associations. The award was presented during the opening ceremony of the OR 2025 conference in Bielefeld by Prof. Karl Inderfurth and Prof. Richard Hartl, which brought together hundreds of researchers and practitioners to discuss the future of Operations Research.

We’re proud to share that the TUM School of Management’s Master's in Management and Technology has climbed the ranks in the Financial Times Master's in Management Ranking 2025, reaffirming its place among themworld’s top programs.

This prestigious ranking evaluates programs based on alumni career progression, school diversity, international experience, and research excellence.

 84% of our graduates secured employment within three months of graduation, showcasing the strong career preparation and industry relevance of our program. We’ve moved up from rank 61 to 54, reflecting our continuous commitment to excellence and innovation in management education.

Our interdisciplinary approach empowers students to lead at the intersection of management and technology, preparing them to shape the future of business.

 Only full-time, cohort-based programs accredited by AACSB or EQUIS are eligible for the FT Ranking, making this recognition even more meaningful.

Congratulations to Prof. Dr. Joachim Henkel on his appointment to the Expert Commission for Research and Innovation (EFI - Expertenkommission Forschung und Innovation) of the German Federal Ministry of Research, Technology, and Space.

Since 2008, the EFI has provided independent scientific policy advice to the German government. Each year, the Commission publishes a report assessing Germany’s research, innovation, and technological performance in an international context and formulates recommendations for the future of innovation policy.

Prof. Dr. Henkel is Professor of Technology and Innovation Management at TUM School of Management. His research focuses on patent management, standards, technology acquisitions, digitalization, as well as open and user innovation. 
With his expertise bridging science and economics, he will contribute to advancing Germany’s innovation landscape.

Leonard Kinzinger has been recognized by BVM Berufsverband Deutscher Markt- und Sozialforscher e.V., VMÖ Verband der Marktforscher , SWISS INSIGHTS, Swiss Data Insights Association for the best Master’s thesis in market research in 2025.

His award-winning thesis, “Exploring the In-Context Learning Ability of LLMs to Create Realistic Synthetic Personalities,” investigates how granular microdata can be embedded into open-source large language models to simulate realistic consumer personas.

🎯 The goal: bridging the gap between #AI theory and practical application in market research.

While these AI-generated personas can’t fully replace real survey participants yet, Leonard’s work offers a scalable, fast, and insightful tool for exploring consumer behavior and societal trends.

Leonard is now pursuing his PhD in AI & Music at the TUM Chair of Digital Marketing. He previously worked at Amazon as a BI Engineer and is currently co-authoring a paper under review at JAMS.

Congratulations on this outstanding achievement, Leonard! Your work sets a strong example of how AI can shape the future of market research. 

Simplifying language. Amplifying access. 
Our FIM alumna Flora Geske and her team at SUMM AI have won the TUM Presidential Entrepreneurship Award 2025! 

Their AI-powered tool translates complex texts into simple language, making information more accessible for everyone. 
Already used by many public institutions, SUMM AI supports people with disabilities, learning difficulties, or a migration background and helps make legal, medical, and official texts easier to understand.

Congratulations to Flora and the team on this outstanding achievement and the €10,000 prize sponsored by the TUM Association of Alumni and Friends! 

FIM is the Master's Program in Finance and Information Management in cooperation with University of Bayreuth. 

The TUM School of Management has been accredited for the maximum period of five years – reaffirming our place among the world’s leading business schools and proudly upholding our Triple Crown status.

We celebrate not only this milestone but also our continuous commitment to 👉 academic excellence, 👉 impactful research, and a 👉future-oriented, international learning environment.
EQUIS recognises institutions that:
Deliver globally benchmarked quality in business education
Emphasise continuous improvement and innovation
Provide students with a unique, practice-oriented learning experience
Foster international networks and strong ties to the business world

We thank our entire community – faculty, staff, students, alumni, and partners – for contributing to this achievement. Together, we continue to shape responsible leaders for the world of tomorrow. 

Congratulations to all our deserving students who have been selected for the Deutschlandstipendium 2024/2025!

The Deutschlandstipendium is awarded to talented students who demonstrate outstanding performance, leadership potential, and social engagement.

Receiving this scholarship is a true recognition of their hard work and dedication to their studies. Half of the amount is funded by the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research and the other half is provided by donors.

This year, also six TUM School of Management students were recipients of the Deutschlandstipendium: Jessica Bouashagh, Raunak Jain, Jonas Kremer, Alissa Lücke, Lucia Sakoman and Tianqi Wang.

We are very proud of you! Thank you also to TUM Management Alumni E.V. for sponsering them. Tina Schüßler and Prof. Dr. Maik Steinmetz, representing the TUM Management Alumni assocation, had the pleasure of meeting our scholarship holders.

How to apply for the scholarship: https://www.tum.de/en/studies/fees-and-financial-aid/scholarships/tum-scholarships/deutschlandstipendium/application 

 The TUM School of Management continues to excel as a leading institution, both nationally and internationally, in the fields of Business and Economics. 

The Times Higher Education (THE) World University Ranking by Subject has placed us at the 31st position.

This recognition underscores our standing as the premier management school in Germany 🇩🇪 and one of the TOP 2 institutions within the European Union in this field. 

Our outstanding score of  99.9% in the Industry category highlights our strong commitment to collaboration with corporate partners, fostering meaningful connections that benefit our research, students, and alumni network, including TUM Management Alumni e.V.

It is worth noting that the THE Subject rankings evaluate over 990 universities worldwide, making this achievement particularly significant.

These results inspire us to remain dedicated to providing our students with a high-quality education and maintaining our strong impact on academia and industry alike.

From past innovations to future visions, Prof. Merton captivated the audience with his profound insights into financial science.

A recipient of the 1997 The Nobel Prize in Economic Sciences for his groundbreaking work on the Black-Scholes-Merton model, he emphasized that true innovation arises from the coexistence of  need, science, and technology.

🎤 “If you only look through the rear window while driving too fast, the road ahead may change before you realize it.”

This powerful allegory underscored the rapid pace of financial evolution.
Prof. Merton also shared thought-provoking ideas on Retirement Security Bonds (RSBs) and the application of real options in infrastructure finance, highlighting striking examples such as Leipzig’s energy expansion in the 1990s.

Before the main event, Prof. Merton took time to meet exclusively with 10 students, answering their questions and engaging in insightful discussions.

A special highlight of the evening was when Prof. Merton presented the Deputy of the Dean, Professor Christoph Kaserer, and the with a unique gift:  stationery from the hotel where Nobel Laureates stay in Stockholm, signed and kept for nearly 28 years.

This remarkable event was facilitated by Dimensional Fund Advisors in collaboration with the Technical University of Munich.

A heartfelt thank you to Prof. Merton for an evening brimming with knowledge, inspiration, and history!

We are proud to share that our school has received the 2024 WRDS-SSRN Innovation Award for the EMEA region! This honor recognizes the groundbreaking business research conducted by our community.

Our Dean, Professor Gunther Friedl, and the TUM School of Management thank Wharton Research Data Services (WRDS) and the Social Science Research Network (SSRN) for this acknowledgment, as well as our colleagues, mentors, and collaborators for their incredible support.

 This achievement inspires us to continue advancing research that shapes financial and economic systems while contributing to the global knowledge network. 

Read more here: https://wrds-www.wharton.upenn.edu/pages/news/tum-school-of-management-wins-emea-innovation-award-for-research-excellence/ 

The TUM School of Management has once again been ranked among the #TopBusinessSchools in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2024 released today.

We are excited about another triumphant achievement as today's #ShanghaiRankings results came in. 

For 6 years in a row, we secured 1st place in management research in Germany and are the only German university in the world to rank among the top 150 management schools.

This accomplishment is a testament to the dedication of our academic community. The GRAS rankings recognize our excellence in World-Class Faculty, World-Class Output, High Quality Research, Research Impact and International Collaboration.

We're grateful for this recognition and committed to delivering exceptional academic work that shapes the future.

Since 2009, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by academic subject has been published annually by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. This release includes rankings of universities in 55 subjects from the fields of natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medicine, and social sciences.

A total of more than 1,900 out of 5,000 universities from 96 countries and regions were included in the rankings.

Great success for Miriam Bird, Professor of Entrepreneurship and Family Enterprise at the TUM School of Management on the Campus Heilbronn, and her doctoral student Sidney Hribersek: The two researchers have been awarded the prestigious “FGF Norbert Szyperski Technology and Innovation Management Award 2024” for their innovative research article “Uncovering the Influence of CEO Curiosity on Eco-Innovations: Insights from German SMEs”. 

In their award-winning article, which Bird and Hribersek presented at the G-Forum in Ingolstadt at the end of September, they discuss the role of CEO curiosity in implementing eco-innovations in German Small and Medium-Sized Enterprises (SMEs). 

One key finding: CEO curiosity is an important prerequisite for introducing eco-innovations.

Based on the Upper Echelons Theory, according to which the characteristics and decisions of executives significantly influence corporate success, the authors conducted a large-scale survey among CEOs of German SMEs. The results show that the curiosity of CEOs is a decisive factor in introducing eco-innovations to reduce energy consumption and CO2 emissions. The study thus offers valuable practical insights for top management teams when selecting CEOs.
 

We are delighted to share that TUM Doctoral Candidate and ATP scholarship recipient Rossella Rocchino and Prof. Christina Hertel from the University of Geneva have been awarded the Best Scholarly Paper Award at the 16th International Social Innovation Research Conference (ISIRC) 2024! 

Their research explores Community Entrepreneurship as a powerful avenue to foster meaningful impact in local communities. By problematizing the need for solutions to local issues to be developed with or by the local communities themselve, they adopt a strategic perspective on community entrepreneurship and propose key implications for sustainable local development.

This award highlights the outstanding work of Rocchino and Hertel, and we’re proud to celebrate their contribution to the field!

The AI@‌WORK conference took place at the TUM School of Management and brought together leaders from academia, business, and politics to explore how artificial intelligence is revolutionizing leadership, work, and collaboration.

Hosted by Dean Professor Gunther Friedl, Professor Isabell Welpe (TUM Chair for Strategy and Organization), Prof. Dr. Theresa Treffers, and Steffi Czerny (DLD Conference), the event features discussions on AI’s impact on various industries, with contributions from renowned experts worldwide.

The conference started with German Federal Minister for Digital and Transport Volker Wissing discussing AI’s potential to boost productivity and solve labor shortages, particularly in healthcare and logistics.
Bavarian Minister for Science & Culture, Markus Blume, highlighted Bavaria’s position as a hub for AI excellence.

Key speakers include Professor Björn Ommer (Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München) on GenerativeAI.
Professor Ethan Mollick (The Wharton School) on AI, our future co-worker, co-teacher, and coach, as well as Dr. Barbara Karuth-Zelle (Allianz) on AI Upskilling, Professor Tessa West (New York University) addressing the role of humans vs. machines in understanding interpersonal interactions, and Peter Norvig (Google) on AI for Training and Continuing Education.

With a mix of in-person and virtual participation, the conference offers attendees exclusive insights and valuable networking opportunities with top minds from across the globe.

100 points in the category INUSTRY go to Technical University of Munich!
The renowned British magazine Times Higher Education (THE) published its annual University Ranking, and we are excited to see that TUM ranks
👉 No. 1 in Germany, 👉 No. 1 in the EU, and among the 👉 TOP 26 universities worldwide.

The cooperation between academia and industry is one of the main objectives at TUM School of Management. We constantly work on establishing new relations with industry partners and implement industry experience in our research and teaching. 

Our students benefit greatly from this knowledge transfer and connection to the industry. At the same time, we provide relevant research and innovation to the industry.

The THE rankings consider a variety of factors. On one hand, academics from around the world are surveyed about the reputation of universities in research and teaching.
On the other hand, metrics such as the number of publications per researcher, citations per publication, the student-to-faculty ratio, industry funding, the number of patents, and the level of internationalization are evaluated.

➡ To the ranking: https://www.timeshighereducation.com/world-university-rankings/latest/world-ranking# 

Congratulations to Professor Farbmacher for winning the Best Paper Award for his groundbreaking research on "Linear Fixed-Effects Estimation with Nonrepeated Outcomes" published in Econometric Reviews!

His work sheds light on biases in popular linear panel-data estimators, even when consistent with the linear model, and offers instrumental variable estimation as a promising alternative. An outstanding contribution to the field, supported by rigorous Monte Carlo simulations and empirical analysis. Well deserved!

The article, co-authored with Harald Tauchmann (FAU), was recognized with the Esfandiar Maasoumi Best Paper Award 2023, which honors the best paper in Econometric Reviews over a specific period. Farbmacher and Tauchmann’s research demonstrates that a statistical method frequently applied in empirical economics (linear fixed-effects estimation) can lead to systematically misleading results in certain cases and introduces a more robust alternative. The award-winning paper is available as an Open Access article for a limited time: https://www.tandfonline.com/doi/full/10.1080/07474938.2023.2224658.

We were delighted to host a senior delegation from Copenhagen Business School (CBS) at TUM School of Management. Led by University Director Arnold Boon, the group—Kristian Dyhr, Mette Kuhlen Gullach, Jane Finnerup Johnsen, Annika Dilling, Anne Weait Suhr, Niels Jespersen, Bitta Nielsen, David Gullberg, René Steffensen, Jakob Ravn, Ash Wallington and Jacob U. Sachse—engaged in insightful discussions on the future of business education and strategic development.

As our Dean, Prof. Gunther Friedl, emphasized, TUM’s unique strength lies in merging technology with management, with a strong focus on entrepreneurship, driving the growth of Munich’s dynamic ecosystem.

From entrepreneurship research with Anne Tryba to insights on lifelong learning and leadership from Silke Klenk and Barbara Tasch, our guests saw firsthand how TUM integrates these fields to develop tomorrow’s STEM leaders.

To cap off the day, our visitors experienced a classic Munich tradition with a visit to Oktoberfest!

Special thanks to Christina Green, Claudia Ferringo, Katinka Kleinheinz, and Sabrina Huber for their insightful contributions, each offering valuable perspectives from their respective departments, and to Ute Helfers for organizing this inspiring visit.

We look forward to continued collaboration with CBS!

Our Master's program in Management and Technology ranks impressively among the top 3.5% globally according to QS Quacquarelli Symonds and proves once more exceptional education and top employability for our students!

In the 2025 edition, the TUM School of Management maintained its outstanding performance, ranking 31st among the world's top Business Masters programs and securing a spot as one of the top 3 programs in Germany.

Notably, our program excels in categories crucial for your future:

• Employability (Employer Reputation and Employment Rate) and
• Thought Leadership (Academic Reputation, PhD Faculty, and Research Impact).

It's worth highlighting that our program has been acknowledged as one of the leading programs in Germany, emphasizing our commitment to preparing students for successful careers.

We are thrilled with this remarkable achievement, emphasizing our dedication to delivering top-tier education and securing promising futures for our graduates.

Dr. Florian Bieberbach, CEO of Stadtwerke München GmbH, has been named "Energy Manager of the Year 2024" by a jury of leading academics, journalists, and energy experts across Germany.
His strategic vision and innovative leadership have paved the way for Munich’s transition to sustainable energy, notably through early investment in renewable energy and deep geothermal energy.
Dr. Bieberbach credits this award to the collective efforts of SWM, highlighting their unwavering commitment to renewable energy and climate goals.

We are proud to have Dr. Bieberbach as an honorary professor at the TUM School of Management since 2014.

Professor Helmut Schoenenberger, CEO of UnternehmerTUM, alongside key leaders from the finance and insurance sectors, has launched the WINInitiative. Backed by Germany’s Chancellor, Finance Minister, and Minister for Economic Affairs, this transformative initiative seeks to significantly improve the conditions for venture and innovation capital in Germany. It marks a crucial move toward increasing investment in high-growth startups, boosting national competitiveness, and securing Europe’s technological sovereignty.

We are proud to have Prof. Schönenberger as an honorary professor at the TUM School of Management since 2019.


At TUM School of Management and the Technical University of Munich, we are proud of the impactful work our honorary professors are doing to shape the future. 

The International Conference on OperationsResearch 2024 in Munich brought together over 700 researchers and industry leaders who shared their latest insights in Operations Research, Management Science, Data Science, and Analytics.

The three plenary talks were delivered by Dolores Romero Morales (Professor of Operations Research, Copenhagen Business School) on "Fairness and Transparency in AI: An OR Perspective", Paul Klemperer (Edgeworth Professor of Economics, University of Oxford) on "Multiproduct Auction Design", and Paul Bixby (Advisor and Co-founder Gurobi GmbH) on "History of Computational Progress in LP and MIP".

Semi-plenary talks were given by Axel Parmentier (Professor and Chairholder of the AI for the Air Transport Industry Research Chair, École nationale des ponts et chaussées), Tarkan Tan (Professor and Chairholder of the Chair of Sustainable Operations Management, University of Zurich), Mathias Goebelt (SAP), Stein W. Wallace (Professor of Operational Research and Leader of the Centre for Shipping and Logistics, Norwegian School of Economics (NHH) Bergen), Angelika Wiegele (Professor of Mathematics, University of Klagenfurt), Victor Martinez de Albeniz (Professor of Operations, Information and Technology, IESE Business School), Carolina Osorio (Professor and Chairholder of the Scale AI Research Chair in Artificial Intelligence for Urban Mobility and Logistics, HEC Montréal, Google Research), and Anthony Papavasiliou (Assistant Professor, National Technical University of Athens).

Attendees participated in hands-on workshops and sessions, including "Modeling and Solving Routing Problems" with Léa Blaise and Julien Darlay, and "Gurobi under the Hood" with Robert Luce. 

The conference also celebrated excellence by recognizing the winners of the GOR PhD, Company, Master's Thesis, and Young Researcher Awards. PhD students engaged in the Dokt!OR program, which featured panels on career development and publishing in leading academic journals.

Beyond the academic content, participants experienced the local culture through a Bavarian reception at Augustiner Bräustuben, complete with traditional food and music, and a memorable conference dinner overlooking the Olympic Games 1972 site. Excursions to the BMW plant, the historic Spaten Brewery, and the stunning Nymphenburg Palace added to the rich cultural experience in Munich.

We thank the organizers who contributed to making this conference a success: Rainer Kolisch, Martin Grunow, Martin Bichler, Gudrun Kiesmüller, Stefan Minner, Maximilian Schiffer, Andreas Schulz, Stefan Weltge, Prof. Dr. Matthias Amen, Malte Fliedner, Prof. Dr. Jutta Geldermann, Alexander Martin, Stefan Ruzika, Norbert Trautmann, Margaretha Gansterer OR 2024 Munich

Congratulations to Mahsa Abbaszadeh Nakhost, research assistant at the TUM Chair of Logistics and Supply Chain Management, who received the ISIR Best Student Paper Award for her paper  "Inventory Transshipment for Promotional Products with Non-Stationary Demand and Updating," co-authored by Gudrun Kiesmüller and Stefan Minner. 

The paper addresses the challenges of inventory transshipment for promotional products in the retail industry. The study introduces a novel approach using Bayesian methodology and a non-homogeneous Poisson Process to balance the trade-off between delaying transshipment for more information and acting early to maximize sales.

The research demonstrates significant profit improvements by accurately modeling demand and optimizing transshipment timing.

The award was presented at the 22nd International Symposium on Inventories in Budapest by the International Society for Inventory Research.

Congratulations to Mahsa for this remarkable achievement! We are incredibly proud to have outstanding students like her who are internationally recognized for their excellence.

🆙 In the latest edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, Technical University of Munich is ranked #2 in Germany and #47 worldwide, climbed 12 spots since 2023.

TUM has once again proven to be a University of Excellence in Germany. TUM supports talented individuals in all their diversity, at all levels, and across subject boundaries. More than 2500 universities are actually ranked every year; the best 1000 are published.

As the management school of TUM, we are committed to excellence and innovation, and we are honored to be among the 1% of the world's top business schools that hold Triple Crown accreditation.

Our mission is to educate responsible talents and pursue relevant research to advance innovation-based businesses and societies in Germany, Europe, and the world.

The annual Academic Ranking of World Universities, produced by Shanghai Ranking, assesses the research performance of universities based on the number of scientific papers published in top journals such as Nature and Science, the citation frequency of researchers, and the number of Nobel laureates and Fields Medal winners.

➡️ To the ranking: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2024

The QTEM Data Challenge is not just a competition—it’s a transformative experience. Through the Global Business Analytics Challenge (GBAC), our students are bridging the gap between theoretical knowledge and real-world industry practices. After completing rigorous online trainings in Data Science, Data Presentation, and Multicultural Teamwork, these talented individuals are now ready to tackle complex, real-world problems.

Working in teams, led by an experienced coach, they will analyze exclusive data and craft innovative solutions that address today’s most pressing issues. We are excited to see the creative and impactful recommendations they will bring to the table. Best of luck, team! We are cheering you on every step of the way.

You are a Master student in Management and Technology and want to know more about QTEM? Check out website: https://www.mgt.tum.de/programs/international-exchange-programs/going-abroad/qtem

The winners of the Social Impact Award 2024 were announced at this year's TUM Entrepreneurship Day.

Students, graduates, and alumni of the TUM School of Management were eligible to participate in the Social Impact Award and win up to €2,000 for their innovative approach to solving a social problem.

🏆 The first place goes to Samuel Keitel, Tim Findeiss, and Staël Wilfried Tchinda Kuete for Senior Connect, which matches senior professionals with companies, ensuring mutual benefit: companies gain from the vast experience and wisdom of seniors while seniors engage in meaningful employment, enhancing their quality of life and financial independence.

🥈 2nd place winner: Lisa Christin Zimmermann and Philipp Middendorf with Student consultancy La Paz, Bolivia
As part of their project study at the TUM Chair for Strategy and Organization under the supervision of Professor Isabell Welpe, they have now set the goal of establishing the concept of student consultancy in Bolivia, thereby creating social and economic value. This project presents an ideal opportunity to contribute to promoting education in developing countries, assuming responsibility, and gaining entrepreneurial experience.

🥉 3rd place winner: Sebastian Moosheimer with workride.
Workride is a digital platform that links corporations and their commuting employees with shuttle operators and drivers. Utilizing route algorithms developed in close collaboration with two TUM institutes, the platform pools in commuters from various companies. They use employee data and AI-based route generation to identify the most popular routes to predict shuttle service demand.

The award is sponsored by our wonderful TUM Management Alumni e.V.
The judges of the Social Impact Awards 2024 were Professor Siddharth Vedula (Chair of Entrepreneurship and Communities), Professor Claudia Doblinger (Chair of Innovation and Technology Management), and Professor Frank-Martin Belz (Chair of Entrepreneurial Sustainability).

👏 We are proud to see that all three projects have successfully addressed a social issue and positively impacted society. 👏 Congratulations!

EU sanctions hit Russian LNG for the first time - our Energy expert Prof. Dr. Svetlana Ikonnikova provides initial forecasts in an interview.

Last Thursday (June 20, 2024), the EU agreed on a new package of sanctions against Russia. For the first time, it targets liquefied natural gas (LNG) supplies and Putin's ghost fleets. 

”What is needed now is greater coordination between the EU and its partners in the Middle East and Asia to ensure that Russia does not find another loophole for the new EU sanctions,” says Ikonnikova.

Read the full interview here: www.fr.de/wirtschaft/eu-sanktionen-treffen-erstmals-russissches-lng-folgen-fuer-europaeischen-gasmarkt-zr-93142450.html

Munich is among the TOP 4 student cities in the world.

The QS World University Rankings Best Student Cities 2025 ranks top study destinations worldwide to reveal which cities are the most student-friendly according to several factors such as student view, student mix, employer activity, affordability, and desirability.

Munich's vibrant and innovative ecosystem, its unique cultural offerings, and its beautiful landscape make it an outstanding choice for students and scholars alike.

To the ranking: https://www.topuniversities.com/city-rankings

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has moved up once again in the QS World University Ranking. This makes it the best German university in the renowned ranking for the past decade and further extends its lead. 💪

TUM moved up nine places from 2023 and is now ranked 28th globally. Last year, the university had already climbed 12 places.
This makes it the 𝗯𝗲𝘀𝘁-𝗿𝗮𝗻𝗸𝗲𝗱 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝘃𝗲𝗿𝘀𝗶𝘁𝘆 𝗶𝗻 𝗚𝗲𝗿𝗺𝗮𝗻𝘆 𝗳𝗼𝗿 𝟭𝟬 𝗰𝗼𝗻𝘀𝗲𝗰𝘂𝘁𝗶𝘃𝗲 𝘆𝗲𝗮𝗿𝘀. It is the only German university in the top 50.

The British higher education service provider QS Quacquarelli Symonds compiles its university quality rankings by 👉 surveying academics and 👉employers.
It also assesses the 👉number of citations for published research, 👉the faculty-student ratio, and 👉the success of graduates. Other criteria include the 👉proportion of international students and staff, 👉international research collaborations, and 👉sustainability aspects.

💪 We are proud to contribute to this achievement. TUM has once again proven its status as a leading entrepreneurial university. We are a site of global knowledge exchange, shaping the future with talent, excellence, and responsibility. We inspire, promote, and develop talents in all their diversity to become responsible, broad-minded individuals.

➡ To the ranking: https://www.topuniversities.com/world-university-rankings

👏🏅 Congratulations to Professor Tim Büthe on his election to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences (Bayerische Akademie der Wissenschaften)!

💡 Admission to the Bavarian Academy of Sciences is one of the most prestigious academic honors, recognizing scholars who through their research have contributed to a significant expansion of scientific knowledge in their fields.  

🤝 Professor Büthe, a member of the TUM School of Management’s Economics and Policy Department, was elected by the current members of the academy for membership in the Academy’s section for Social Sciences, Economics and Law.

Congratulations to the brilliant minds at TUM School of Management for their victory in the Campus Challenge "Successful Investing with AI and Large Language Models."

Led by Professor Sebastian Müller and doctoral researcher Christian Breitung from the Center for Digital Transformation at TUM Campus Heilbronn, this challenge exemplified the fusion of cutting-edge technology with financial expertise.

The winning team Hannes Voucko-Glockner and Luis Ganßloser, Master's students in Finance and Information Management (FIM), showcased their ingenuity by integrating a momentum strategy with AI-based diversification techniques.
Their portfolio surpassed benchmarks and set a new standard for innovation in investment strategies. We proudly award them the 1st prize and thank Behavioral Finance e.V. for sponsoring it.

Securing the 2nd place in the challenge, students from the Master in Management (MiM) program Jannik Nerpel, Cihan Yılmaz, and Kadir Erdem ŞAHİN, demonstrated the effectiveness of combining Large Language Models (LLMs) with traditional Machine Learning (ML) techniques in investment strategies.

This victory underlines TUM School of Management's commitment to fostering forward-thinking approaches in finance education. Our study programs equip the students with the skills and knowledge needed to navigate the evolving landscape of financial markets.

👏 We applaud their dedication and look forward to witnessing their continued success in shaping the future of finance.

Technical University of Munich is one of the best universities in the world at preparing students for the digital economy. 
In the latest Digital Leaders in Higher Education ranking, TUM is among the TOP 5, alongside Harvard University, the University of Cambridge, MIT and the University of Oxford.

The ranking was compiled by Emerging and Trendence, who analyzed the university degrees of 110,000 digital professionals working in the world's most innovative companies. They also asked around 3600 IT professionals, startup founders, and young talent about the universities they would recruit from.

TUM ranks
🚀 4th in Digital Transformation Management Programs
💡 4th in Digital Entrepreneurship Programs
💻 4th in Best Institutions for Computer Science Studies

TUM School of Management actively contributes to this success by launching various initiatives, demonstrating that digitalization is a core part of our identity. We are proud of our unwavering commitment to excellence and innovation in the digital landscape! 

Read more about the rating here: https://www.emerging.fr/digital-leaders/rankings

In the 2024 QS World University Rankings by Subject, we are ranked 23rd in the world in the subject Statistics and Operational Research, moving up 5 places (28th in 2023) and making Technical University of Munich the best German university in this subject third time in a row.
Additionally, we are proud to have made the leap to the top of Business & Management in Germany (80th worldwide).

We are also among the top 5 universities in the country for Accounting & Finance as well as Economics & Econometrics.

The 2024 edition of the QS World University Rankings by Subject features 55 individual subjects across five broad subject areas. 1,559 institutions have been ranked across these subjects this year.
We are grateful and proud to be recognized for our excellence in these fields. 

TUM School of Management conducts cutting-edge research and teaching at the interface of management and technology. Our mission is to turn enthusiasm for innovation and technology into real products by teaching the necessary management skills in our study programs.

Research at the TUM School of Management is also characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. The faculty is engaged in a wide range of research projects that bridge the gap between disciplines. Our research focuses on future trends and real-world solutions that advance innovation-based businesses and benefit society at large.
Students benefit from the use of cutting-edge research in the classroom.

➡ To the QS Ranking: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-subject-rankings

The inspiring exchange between the two institutions addressed the educational challenges faced by a large number of students across multiple campuses, emphasizing the need for AI-backed solutions.

During the meeting between our Dean Gunther Friedl, our Vice-Dean Jürgen Ernstberger, our Managing Director Barbara Tasch and the Microsoft representatives Kate Maxwell, Lorenz Kupfer and Mario Steinberg key points were discussed that include improving student engagement and personalized learning experiences, implementing feedback mechanisms, and streamlining administrative processes.

These actions aim to foster effective partnerships and innovative solutions to tackle the identified educational challenges.

We thank Kate Maxwell, Lorenz Kupfer and Mario Steinberg for the the inspiring exchange on AI in Higher education, and the opportunity to develop future-oriented use cases and discuss a potential collaboration in a joint workshop at the Microsoft Experience Center in April 2024.

Stay tuned!

Congrats to our Alumni Felix Poernbacher and the startup DeepDrive on winning the 2024 Münchner Management Kolloquium Award of Excellence in the category startup!

6 start-ups qualified for the unique opportunity to pitch their business to an audience full of top managers and top researchers at the 31st Münchner Management Kolloquium. 

 The Start-up Stage took place as part of the MMK Awards Ceremony, which was a prelude to the gala event and more awards! Among them were the outstanding start-up finalists with innovative ideas and new concepts:
• trail
• tozero
• Pina Earth
• Atmen
• VESTIGAS
• DeepDrive

After pitching to the jury consisting of representatives of Technical University of Munich, TUM School of Management, TCW Management Consulting, BMW Group, E.ON, and TÜV SÜD the startup with TUM School of Management co-founder Felix won the 2024 MMK Award of Excellence in the category Best Startup! 
 

👏 Three TUM proposals are in line for funding as new Clusters of Excellence. 👏
We are proud to confirm that an affiliation exists between the excellence cluster TransforM and the TUM School of Management, represented by Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer, Prof. Hanna Hottenrott, and Prof. Holger Patzelt.

Our affiliate member Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer is a Professor of Innovation Research and head of the Innovation, Society, and Public Policy Research Group at the TUM School of Management, he is STS Department Head of the Munich Center for Technology in Society (MCTS) and spokesperson for the TransfroM cluster.

ℹ About TransforM:
Munich Center for Transformative Technologies and Social Change

On the one hand, transformative technologies are seen as the key to solving major challenges such as climate change, energy, mobility, and health care; on the other hand, they lead to increasing skepticism towards innovation and public controversies. As an interdisciplinary social science cluster, TransforM aims to rethink theories, methods, and practices of participation, legitimacy, responsibility, security, and resilience regarding transformative technologies for dynamically changing societies.

At the same time, the cluster wants to explore how these social concerns can be better anchored in innovation processes to reconcile technological progress and economic opportunities with social, ecological, and political interests in the future.

The approval of the respective Clusters of Excellence will be announced on May 22, 2025. Fingers crossed for the final round! 🤞

This week we had the absolute honor of welcoming the distinguished delegation from Tsinghua University SIGS (Tsinghua Shenzhen International Graduate School).

The visit was a wonderful opportunity for both sides to foster connections, share insights, and explore the immense potential for future collaboration.

During the engaging discussions, the Chinese delegation consisting of Prof. Zheng Ouyang (Dean of Tsinghua SIGS), Prof. Xiaoping Zhang (Director, Institute of Data and Information), Dr. Yan Song, (Assistant Director, Institute of Innovation Management), Dr. Xiuqing Hao (Director of Tsinghua X-Lab), Mr. Zhenyi Ma (Director Office of Global Affairs) and our representatives Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl, Prof. Thomas Hutzschenreuter (Vice Dean International Affairs & Alliances), Prof. Jürgen Ernstberger (Vice Dean Academic and Student Affairs), Prof. Joachim Henkel (Vice Dean Research), Dr. Manuela Sato-Prinz (Director Study Support & International Affairs) and Jamie Snow (Manager for International Affairs & Alliances) delved into topics such as potential 👉double degrees

and 👉research collaboration.

The enthusiasm for mutual growth and knowledge exchange was truly inspiring. Tsinghua holds a special place as a flagship partner of Technical University of Munich, and the shared dedication to academic excellence and innovation was tangible throughout the meeting.

We are excited about the possibilities that lie ahead and the transformative impact we can achieve through collaborative efforts. Let's continue to build bridges and create opportunities for knowledge exchange.

As the grandson of the former mayor, Prof. Joos has significantly shaped Nonnenhorn's character by generously supporting local initiatives and taking over key local institutions, such as the carpentry business.

His visionary actions, like acquiring land for an industrial area and creating a public park, reflect his enduring commitment to community well-being.

Despite living in Munich, Prof. Joos maintains a strong connection to his hometown, continuing to advocate for local causes. Since April 2021, Prof Joos has been a visiting lecturer at the TUM, where he was appointed honorary professor for  Business Administration - Political Stakeholder Management in 2022.

Congratulations on this well-deserved honorary citizenship, and we are proud to have such a dedicated supporter and mentor among us!
 

Grounded in our technological and entrepreneurial ecosystem our scientists' research is at the intersection of management, engineering, natural, and life sciences. The Research Fest is an event conducted by Prof. Joachim Henkel, that allows researchers to present and exchange ideas in the highly interdisciplinary context of our school.

The three best-exhibited posters on ongoing research projects are granted a prize, sponsored by TUM Management Alumni e.V. and awarded by our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl.

Congratulations to the Best Poster Award 2023 Winners 

🥇 Stefan Weik for his research on “The Startup Performance Disadvantage in Europe: Evidence from Startups Migrating to the U.S.”

🥈 Konstantin Wink, Fabian Schäfer, Santiago Gallino, Prof. Alexander Hübner from TUM Campus Straubing on “Fresh Perspectives: The Effect of Store Attributes on Food Waste of Perishables in Grocery Retail”

🥉 Christina Liepold, Pedro Amorim, Prof. Maximilian Schiffer on “Combinatorial Auction Design for Networked Returns
Mitigating Externalities in Online Retail Marketplaces”

Furthermore, scientists from several academic departments presented their insightful research, which included topics such as
📌"Individual Perceptions of Business Groups after Incidents of Wrongdoing: Exploring the Alignment of Impression Management Tactics" by Prof. Melanie Richards,
📌"Early Child Care, Maternal Labor Supply, and Gender Equality: A Randomized Controlled Trial" by Prof. Philipp Lergetporer from TUM Campus Heilbronn,
📌"Where Should I Charge My Car? - From User-centric Solutions to System-centric Improvements" by Prof. Maximilian Schiffer, and
📌"The Entrepreneurial Finance Foodchain: Collaboration, Communities and Success" by Prof. Reiner Braun.

The TUM MGT x Microsoft Hackathon was a wild ride! Facing an unexpected snowstorm in Munich and navigating coding challenges at Microsoft Germany over a span of 72 hours, our 8 teams admirably maintained focus on the challenge of building ways to support our student support via GenAI!

The participants were tasked to come up with innovative ways to support our students in obtaining accurate and swift answers regarding their studies, minimizing the need for office assistance. The experience heightened enthusiasm for the future, particularly after gaining insights into Microsoft's product line, including Azure, Azure AI Search, and Azure AI Studio.

It was an inspiring event with highly motivated students.  
Congratulations to the two winning teams 

🏅 TUM Support 👏
Leon Henrik Thiel
Azadeh Kooshesh
Mohanad Kandil
Penny Hung
Simon Langer

🏅 RAGgression 👏
David Podolskyi
Thomas Wölkhardt
Tobias Jülg
Paul Delseith

The jury was comprised of an exceptional team, featuring the expertise of Barbara Tasch, Georg Groh, Prof. Stephan Krusche, Lorenz Kupfer, Daniela Todorova, Lilian Dammann, Dr. Stefanie Lämmle, and Dr. Jasper Schwenzow. Their invaluable contributions and insights played a pivotal role in the success of the event.

Excited to dive into further collaboration with the winners—let's keep pushing boundaries with innovation and a touch of adventure!

Students pursuing master's degrees at TUM School of Management are highly satisfied with teaching standards and study conditions. In the latest CHE Rankings, they award excellent grades to our campus in Munich and TUM Campus Heilbronn.

💫 FIM Program Excels in Munich:
The Financial and Information Management (FIM) program at our Munich campus, which is taught in cooperation with the University of Bayreuth, has truly soared to new heights!
With extraordinary ratings of 5 stars in 18 categories, FIM has garnered an all-star rating, surpassing the average of all universities. Students emphasize the benefits of small group organization, fostering direct communication with lecturers, deeper discussions, and engaging follow-up projects.

🌍 Campus Excellence in Munich (MMT, MiM, MCS, MiMI):
Students in our Master's programs in Munich have lauded the digital teaching methods and the broad range of study offerings. The hybrid mode of lectures, a seamless blend of online and in-person classes, has earned praise, highlighting our commitment to adaptable and dynamic learning environments. There is praise for the teaching style and the ability to choose courses freely.

🌟 Heilbronn Shines Bright (Master in Management):
The management degree programs at the TUM Campus Heilbronn are covered separately in the CHE rankings. Students gave outstanding ratings as well and commended the support from lecturers and the program's research focus. The flexible structure allows for specialization. We're proud to provide an environment that nurtures academic growth and innovation.

The CHE Centre for Higher Education (CHE) compares this Ranking to the Master's programs at German-speaking universities. Universities are rated by students on a one to five-star scale in various categories. 

Excellent news and a great honor for Prof. Dr. Jens Foerderer, Professor for Innovation and Digitalization at the TUM Campus Heilbronn: The ambitious professor will be funded by the European Research Council (ERC) with a total of 1.5 million euros over the next five years. 

His research project "Fair Competition in App Markets" convinced the ERC committee. His pioneering research aims to understand how Apple's and Google's obligations under the European Union's Digital Markets Directive affect competition and innovation in their app stores. 

With this prestigious funding, Prof. Förderer will advance his research goals in a targeted and focused manner. He has a clear vision: "Digital markets play an immensely important role in the global economy, but are controlled by a few platforms. We need to better understand how to ensure competition, innovation and fairness in digital markets.

The grant approval is an important milestone in this journey, as research is costly and the funds can be used to establish an academic working group for the winning project. In addition, many research projects were competing for these important resources. Jens Förderer is therefore happy and proud of the Research Council's decision: "This funding is an award that very few researchers receive. I am overjoyed that my research convinced the Commission and the reviewers.

We've been re-accredited by AACSB for another 5 years! 

Today marks another milestone for TUM School of Management: 𝗪𝗲 𝗮𝗿𝗲 𝗱𝗲𝗹𝗶𝗴𝗵𝘁𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗼 𝗮𝗻𝗻𝗼𝘂𝗻𝗰𝗲 𝘁𝗵𝗮𝘁 𝘄𝗲 𝗵𝗮𝘃𝗲 𝗲𝗮𝗿𝗻𝗲𝗱 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗲𝘅𝘁𝗲𝗻𝘀𝗶𝗼𝗻 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲 𝗔𝗔𝗖𝗦𝗕 𝗮𝗰𝗰𝗿𝗲𝗱𝗶𝘁𝗮𝘁𝗶𝗼𝗻. 

The Association to Advance Collegiate Schools of Business (AACSB) unites educators, students, and businesses in pursuit of a shared mission: nurturing the next generation of exceptional leaders.

Since 1916, AACSB Accreditation has symbolized the pinnacle of excellence, and TUM School of Management is proudly counted among this distinguished community.

Earning AACSB Accreditation places us in the top echelon, with only 5% of business schools worldwide achieving this recognition. This celebration is the result of years of tireless effort by our outstanding faculty, and staff, and the remarkable contributions of our students and alumni. Thank you! 

AACSB Reaccreditation reflects our sincere and continuous dedication to business excellence, as our curriculum upholds the highest standards, our students receive guidance from accomplished business leaders, and our graduates acquire the skills, knowledge, and experience highly valued by global employers.
 

A Week of Triumph: 3 Prestigious Rankings in 3 Days! 
The TUM School of Management has once again been ranked among the Top Business Schools in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2023 released today.

Following the excellent outcomes in the QS and THE rankings earlier this week, we are excited about another triumphant achievement as today's Shanghai Rankings results came in. 

For 5️⃣ years in a row, we secured 1st place in management research in Germany and are the only German university in the world to rank among the top 100 management schools.

 This accomplishment is a testament to the dedication of our academic community. The GRAS rankings recognize our excellence in research output, influence,  international collaboration,  research quality, and  academic awards on a global scale.

We're grateful for this recognition and committed to delivering exceptional academic work that shapes the future.

Since 2009, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by academic subject has been published annually by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. This release includes rankings of universities in 55 subjects from the fields of natural sciences, engineering, life sciences, medicine, and social sciences.

A total of more than 1,900 out of 5,000 universities from 104 countries and regions were included in the rankings.

It´s ranking season and we keep celebrating! 
The TUM School of Management has once again solidified its position as a prominent institution, both nationally and internationally, in the realm of Business and Economics. 

The Times Higher Education World University Ranking by Subject has placed us at the 27th position, marking a significant advancement from its 2022 ranking of 33.

This latest recognition not only reaffirms our status as the premier management school in Germany 🇩🇪 but also situates us as one of the TOP 2 institutions within the European Union in this field. 🇪🇺

An additional aspect of our recent success is underscored by our remarkable score of  99.3% in the Industry category, a testament to our steadfast commitment to collaboration with corporate partners. This engagement-driven approach has proven to be a fruitful endeavor, fostering benefits that reverberate through our research initiatives, our student body, and our esteemed alumni network.

It is worth noting that the evaluation conducted by THE Subject encompasses more than 900 universities worldwide, thus rendering our ascent to the 27th position all the more commendable.

This upward trajectory in our rankings aligns with a consistent and positive trend that we have sustained in previous global assessments.

These results for the current year elicit a sense of gratification, motivating us to maintain our unwavering dedication to furnishing our students with a high-quality education.

Ranked among the top 13.4% in the world, our Master's program in Management not only ensures exceptional education and research but also guarantees top employability for our students!

In the 2024 edition, the TUM School of Management continued its remarkable performance, securing the 27th position out of 201 Master´s in Management programs worldwide.

Notably, we shine in categories crucial for your future:
Employability (Employer Reputation and Employment Rate) and Thought Leadership (Academic Reputation, PhD Faculty, and Research Impact).

It's worth highlighting that our program has been acknowledged as one of the leading programs in Germany, emphasizing our commitment to preparing students for successful careers.

We are thrilled with this remarkable achievement, emphasizing our dedication to delivering top-tier education and securing promising futures for our graduates.
 

The United Nations World Intellectual Property Organization – WIPO published its 2023 ranking of the top 100 innovation clusters.

Munich is the best cluster in Germany at 22nd place (24th in 2022) and the 3rd best research and innovation cluster in Europe. The Technical University of Munich and the BMW Group contribute the most patents and publications. 

Munich is the 1st of 9 German clusters to be ranked among the top 100 S&T clusters. It filed 3,702 PCT applications and published 8,757 scientific articles, both per 1 million inhabitants over the last five years, making it the 22ⁿᵈ largest S&T cluster in 2023, 10ᵗʰ S&T cluster by intensity (relative to population density) in 2023.

The World Intellectual Property Organization (WIPO) is the global forum for intellectual property (IP) services, policies, information and cooperation.

According to the prestigious Financial Times Master in Management Ranking, our Master in Management and Technology is among the world's top Masters in Management programs. The ranking takes into account factors such as alumni career progression, school diversity, and international research and experience.

The ranking shows that 92% of our graduates are employed within 3 months, demonstrating the excellent career preparation our program provides.

The unique combination of the program empowers our students to drive innovation and take on roles at the intersection of management and technology, preparing them for their future careers.

We are also pleased to be ranked 13th worldwide in the category "Value for Money" and best in Germany, offering an excellent education for a small amount of money.

Business schools must meet strict criteria to be included in the Financial Times Ranking. Their programs must be full-time, cohort-based, and schools must be accredited by either AACSB or EQUIS (EFMD Global).

➡ To the ranking: https://rankings.ft.com/rankings/2948/masters-in-management-2023

TUM Professors provide the best startup support 
Prof. Klaus Diepold, Prof. Markus Lienkamp, Prof. Hana Milanov, and Prof. Helmut Schoenenberger have been honored as 𝗨𝗻𝗶𝗽𝗿𝗲𝗻𝗲𝘂𝗿𝘀 for their outstanding entrepreneurial activities at TUM.

The Unipreneur Awards are one of the most prestigious honors for scientists who dedicate their time and advice to startup teams at German universities. The jury selected 20 winners from more than 700 nominations submitted by young entrepreneurs.

Among the 20 winners are 4 TUM professors:
🏆 Prof. Klaus Diepold, Chair of Computer Science, Director of the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM)
🏆 Prof. Markus Lienkamp, Chair of Automotive Engineering, Co-Director of the MCube - Munich Cluster for the future of Mobility in Metropolitan Regions
🏆 Prof. Hana Milanov, Chair of International Entrepreneurship, Board of Directors of the Center for Digital Technology and Management (CDTM) and professor at TUM School of Management
🏆 Prof. Helmut Schönenberger, Vice President for Entrepreneurship at TUM, CEO of UnternehmerTUM

Unipreneurs is an initiative of the investors Matthias Hilpert and Martin Schilling, the Stifterverband für die Deutsche Wissenschaft, the German Startup Association, the industry association Bitkom Events, and startupdetector.

The official patrons of the awards are the German Federal Minister for Economics and Climate Action Robert Habeck and the German Federal Minister of Research and Education Bettina Stark-Watzinger.

Congratulations to our outstanding TUM professors for this well-deserved honor. Your continued dedication to innovation and entrepreneurship is an inspiration to us all! 

Congratulations to Anna-Katharina Schaper (Research Associate at the EQUA Endowed Chair for Family Business Culture and Ownership) for winning the Kauffman Best Student Paper on DEI (Diversity, Equity, Inclusion) & Entrepreneurship Award at the 83^rd Annual Meeting of the Academy of Management (AOM) in Boston. The Award from the AOM DEI Division was sponsored by the Ewing Marion Kauffman Foundation.

Anna-Katharina Schaper and her co-authors (William B. Gartner, Bertarelli Foundation Distinguished Professor of Family Entrepreneurship, Babson College & Friederike Welter, Professor for SME Management and Entrepreneurship, University of Siegen and President of the IfM Bonn) investigated the role of family support for women’s entrepreneurship in China. Anna-Katharina’s research is part of her doctoral dissertation (Chair of China Business and Economics, Faculty of Business Management and Economics, University of Würzburg).

ShanghaiRanking 2023 published: TUM among the top 2 German universities 
In the latest edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, TUM is ranked #2 in Germany and #59 worldwide. 

Technical University of Munich has once again proven to be a University of Excellence in Germany. TUM supports talented individuals in all their diversity, at all levels, and across subject boundaries

As the business school of TUM, we are committed to excellence and innovation, and we are honored to be among the 1% of the world's elite business schools that hold  Triple Crown accreditation.
Our mission is to educate responsible talents and pursue relevant research to advance innovation-based businesses and societies in Germany, Europe, and the world.

The annual Academic Ranking of World Universities, produced by Shanghai Ranking, assesses the research performance of universities based on the number of scientific papers published in top journals such as Nature and Science, the citation frequency of researchers, and the number of Nobel laureates and Fields Medal winners.

➡️ See ranking: https://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2023

Congratulations to Professor Paul Momtaz for winning the Academy of Management’s 2023 Early-Career Award from the ONE Division, sponsored by the Kauffman Foundation. The Academy of Management was founded in 1936 and has about 20,000 members, comprising management and economics scholars from around the world.

The Award was presented to Professor Momtaz at the Academy of Management Annual Meeting in Boston for his research on Sustainability and Entrepreneurship. In his research, Professor Momtaz uses machine-learning methods to study how sustainability impacts entrepreneurial activity and the extent to which ESG metrics impact entrepreneurial finance.

Congratulations to Professor Momtaz on this significant achievement, which is a testament to his hard work and dedication.

QTEM students, together with QTEM Dean Professor Rainer Kolisch, met with consultants from Siemens Advanta Consulting in Munich to gain exclusive insight into the company's projects and career opportunities.

The QTEM network (Quantitative Techniques for Economics and Management) is an international network that brings together
👉 outstanding Master in Management & Technology students,
👉 academic partners, and
👉 international companies.

The events ensure corporate exposure in an international environment and support our students in building a strong business network.
QTEM develops skills in analytical and quantitative techniques to support decision-making in an international context.

Furthermore, QTEM offers an exchange at one of the universities of the QTEM network (25 partner universities worldwide), participation in the Global Business Analytics Challenge, and a quantitative internship.

The QS Best Student Cities 2024 ranks top study destinations around the world to reveal which cities are the most student-friendly according to several factors such as student view, student mix, employer activity, affordability, and desirability.

Munich is among the TOP 5 student cities in the world! 
1. London
2. Tokyo
3. Seoul
4. Melbourne

No wonder, with its rich academic infrastructure, state-of-the-art research facilities, and vibrant cultural scene, Munich offers an ideal environment for students and scholars alike.

Munich's vibrant and innovative ecosystem its unique cultural offerings and its beautiful landscape make it an outstanding choice for students.

Prof. Dr. Dr. h. c. mult. Horst Wildemann received the honorary doctorate from the Hamburg University of Technology (TUHH), which was presented to him by TUHH President Prof. Andreas Timm-Giel and TUHH Vice President Wolfgang Kersten. 

Professor Wildemann was honored for successfully linking science and operational practice, for reducing the vaccine shortage during the COVID-19 epidemic, and for his services to the international competitiveness of the German automotive industry.

Professor Wildemann developed a modular production system called "BioNTainer" for the COVID-19 vaccine manufacturer BioNTech SE. This enabled the Mainz-based pharmaceutical company to scale up the production of its Covid-19 vaccine during the pandemic.

“I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Professor Wildemann on his well-deserved honorary doctorate. This is an amazing achievement that highlights his dedication and exceptional contributions to science and the industry. Congratulations on this tremendous achievement!”, said Professor Gunther Friedl, Dean of the TUM School of Management.

Professor Horst Wildemann held the Chair of Business Administration, Corporate Management, Logistics, and Production at the Technical University of Munich, and has headed the Munich-based consultancy TCW Management Consulting for more than 30 years now. Wildeman is also the initiator of the conference Münchner Management Kolloquium, which is held annually at TUM.

At the TUM Entrepreneurship Day, Isabell Welpe, Professor of TUM Chair for Strategy and Organization, was honored with the TUM Start-up Mentor of Excellence Award.

With this award, the TUM honors professors who are particularly committed and successful in mentoring #startup teams. Many scientists accompany the teams during the application and the one-year term of an EXIST start-up grant. Mentoring by scientists is a prerequisite for receiving one of the coveted federal grants for university spin-offs.
 
Professor Welpe´s research focuses on the digital transformation of companies, business model innovations, the impact of digital technologies on businesses and organizations, and the future of leadership and work/organizational design.
She studied Management at the Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität München and at the Massachusetts Institute of Technology, Boston, USA. She also completed an MSc at the London School of Economics.

She is a research fellow at University College London. Isabell Welpe teaches strategy and business model innovation, digital transformation, leadership, organizational design, and managing people and organizations. Her research has been reported in the media, e.g. Harvard Business Manager and MIT Sloan Management Review.

We congratulate Professor Welpe on this fantastic achievement!

In the renowned QS World University Rankings, TUM is once again number one in Germany - for the ninth time in a row. It is ranked second in the European Union and 37th worldwide.

Technical University of Munich has moved up 12 places since last year and is now ranked 37th. It is the second-best university in the EU and among the top 10 in Europe.

The 20th edition of the QS World University Rankings features 1,500 institutions across 104 locations and is the only ranking of its kind to emphasize employability and sustainability.
This year, the largest-ever methodological enhancement, introducing three new metrics: Sustainability, Employment Outcomes and International Research Network has been implemented.

TUM has once again proven its status as a leading entrepreneurial university. We are a site of global knowledge exchange, shaping the future with talent, excellence, and responsibility. We inspire, promote and develop talents in all their diversity to become responsible, broad-minded individuals.

To the ranking: https://www.topuniversities.com/university-rankings/world-university-rankings/2024

Professor Gudrun Kiesmüller receives honorary doctorate from Otto-von-Guericke-Universität Magdeburg University, which was presented to her by the dean of the faculty of Economics and Management Prof. Dr. Abdolkarim Sadrieh (left) and the rector of the university Prof. Dr. Jens Strackeljan (right).

The renowned professor receives this award for her outstanding scientific achievements, particularly in connection with the optimal planning and design of supply chains, manufacturing systems and maintenance processes.

With numerous publications in internationally renowned journals, Prof. Kiesmüller is one of Germany's leading researchers in business administration. Her expertise spans various areas of production and logistics research, especially in supply chain management and inventory management.

Furthermore, prior to her move to TUM in 2019, Prof. Kiesmüller was instrumental in founding the research cluster "Center of Operations Research and Business Analytics" (CORBA) at the University of Magdeburg and developed the successful master program "Operations Research and Business Analytics". Her dedicated work and commitment have contributed to the redesign of the Master's programs at the Faculty of Economics and Management, thus significantly influencing the study landscape of business administration at the University of Magdeburg.

“I would like to extend my sincere congratulations to Professor Kiesmüller on her well-deserved honorary doctorate. This is an amazing achievement that highlights her dedication, hard work, and exceptional contributions to science and academia. Her expertise, enthusiasm and dedication are an inspiration to us all. I am very grateful to have Professor Kiesmüller at the TUM School of Management. She was the first TUM professor at our TUM Campus Heilbronn and significantly contributed to our growth. Congratulations on this tremendous achievement!”, said Professor Gunther Friedl, Dean of the TUM School of Management.

(Photo: Jana Dünnhaupt/Uni Magdeburg)

The Technical University of Munich has successfully defended its pole position in the Times Higher Education Impact Ranking.

The ranking takes into account 1️⃣ research on industry and innovation, 2️⃣ the number of patents and spin-off companies, and 3️⃣ research income from industry.

Our students at the TUM School of Management benefit from our research and collaboration with the industry as well as from our entrepreneurial education.  We believe in a close link between academia and industry to prepare students for their future role in the economy. 

TUM received the maximum number of points and was tied for first place with three other universities. TUM has now topped the list 3 times - in every edition of the ranking to date. 

The Times Higher Education Impact Rankings are the only global performance tables that assess universities against the United Nations’ Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs). They calibrated indicators to provide comprehensive and balanced comparison across four broad areas: research, stewardship, outreach and teaching. The list includes 873 institutions from 87 countries/regions.

➡ to the ranking: https://lnkd.in/eaDXgsu3

Rarely has a technology sparked such intense discussion as ChatGPT, the artificial intelligence (AI)-based chatbot. The brain behind it and co-founder of OpenAI, Sam Altman, visited TUM on May 25th, 2023. In the Audimax, he explained the reasons for its success, why ChatGPT is not an open source technology, and how it could be regulated.

After less than half an hour, the 1,100-seat Audimax was sold out for the 38-year-old's only public event in Germany during his European tour. Under questioning from Reinhard Heckel, professor of machine learning, Sam Altman, along with OpenAI developer Johannes Heidecke, recounted the evolution of the language model to its current fourth version. "Even with GPT-3, the whole company wasn't convinced," Altman said. The key to its success, he said, is its natural language chat capability, which provides an even better human-computer interface than the touchscreen. However, ChatGPT is still misunderstood as a large database, he said.

Altman explained why OpenAI made the technology available to the public early on, following a "show, don't tell" approach: "We feel strongly that we should educate the world about it and give people time to gradually adapt to the technology”. That way, he said, there can be a discussion about how to deal with artificial intelligence. This, he said, is better than keeping technologies secret in the lab for a long time because it would supposedly scare people into releasing them too soon.

Read full article here: https://www.mgt.tum.de/our-stories-with-impact/stories/ceo-of-openai-sam-altman-discusses-chatgpt-at-tum 

What a special moment for our FIM alumni Flora Geske, Vanessa Theel, and Nicholas Wolf: Bavarian State Minister for Digital Affairs Judith Gerlach presented them with the Bavarian Digital Award 2023 for their startup SUMM. Congratulations! 👏

SUMM's daily efforts are being noticed, and that's important because more than 10 million people in Germany struggle with complicated texts. They can only find their way around online (and offline) if the information is accessible and presented in an easy-to-understand way, and that's exactly what SUMM does with automatic translation into #LeichteSprache, #easylanguage.

A tool with impact:
👉 SUMM is in use in Aschaffenburg, the city publishes press releases in plain language at the push of a button.
👉 SUMM is being used for the Bavarian elections 2023 (Landtagswahl 2023), preparing the election process in Bavaria in an inclusive and understandable way.

We are very proud to see our alumni thrive as inspiring decision-makers and wish the SUMM team all the best for the future!
 

TUM School of Management students from Heilbronn and Munich are highly satisfied with the teaching standards and study conditions in their management studies.

In the new ranking by the CHE Centre for Higher Education, they give their school the highest marks. The TUM School of Management receives top ratings in its subject. Students are particularly satisfied with the general study situation and digital teaching. Especially the TUM Campus Heilbronn receives five stars for its rooms and equipment on its modern campus.

In research, the School scores the highest marks in research reputation and is also in the top group in terms of  research funding per scientist as well as doctorates and  publications per professor.
The subject ranking also awards our faculty in Straubing a high research reputation and they also achieve top group rankings for research funding per scientist and doctorates per professor. Students in Straubing were not able to participate in the survey yet.
Overall, TUM School of Management was able to improve its ratings compared to the results from the last evaluation two years ago and received above-average ratings for all of the categories assessed by the survey.

Germany's largest university ranking - facts and opinions from 120,000 students and 3,000 professors. The CHE compares individual subjects at German-speaking universities, this time in business administration/management. The ranking is primarily intended to provide orientation for prospective students. The focus is on the opinion of around 120,000 students surveyed. The universities are rated in numerous categories on a scale from one to five stars.

In their management programs overall, TUM receives at least four stars in all categories. For the "general study situation," students award four and a half stars. The same top ratings were given for the range of courses offered, the support provided by the lecturers and the organization of the studies. Especially at the Heilbronn Campus, TUM even receives five stars for their rooms and equipment on its modern campus.

The CHE rating proves once again, that the TUM School of Management delivers excellent research and teaching. The students value the study opportunities and variety of courses, which is reflected also in the extracurricular opportunities offered by the TUM ecosystem.
 

To the ranking: https://studiengaenge.zeit.de/ranking/results?fachId=24&hochschultyp=1&abschlussart=3&utm_referrer=https:%2F%2Fstudiengaenge.zeit.de%2F

TUM School of Management is the number one in the world to educate students in digitalization and worldwide third for training digital start-up leaders

In the latest edition of the Digital Leaders in Higher Education – a series of the Global Ranking for Best Universities for Digital Learning and Studies – TUM School of Management  has earned first place. 

Which universities train their students best to work with digital technologies? Who is producing the future "digital leaders" in large companies and in startups?

To find out, consulting firms Emerging and Trendence used the Crunchbase database to identify the university degrees of 110,000 digital professionals at the world's most innovative companies. They also asked around 3,600 IT professionals, startup founders and young professionals which universities they would recruit graduates from. The result is the "Global Ranking for Best Universities for Digital Learning and Studies" in the "Digital Leaders in Higher Education" series.

Here’s what they found out:

- TUM with its School of Management is the world's best university in "Digital companies' management studies". In this category, the ranking evaluates how many managers of digital companies have studied business, marketing and/or finance at the respective universities.

- TUM also ranks third after the University of Tokyo and the University of Melbourne in terms of training for digital startups. For this category, the degrees of the founders were evaluated and the digital experts were asked about the best entrepreneurship programs.

- In the overall ranking, TUM achieved 11th place, which means that it has improved by seven places compared to the previous year.

Especially at TUM Campus Heilbronn we educate digital thinkers, future leaders, entrepreneurs, and pioneers. Hereby, we are as technology-driven as their careers ahead. Our interdisciplinary approach in the study programs combining management and technology prepares our students to shape the future. At Campus Heilbronn the TUM School of Management offers the Bachelor in Management & Technology as well as the Master in Management to educate digital leaders.

The TUM Think Tank is setting up a task force to provide orientation and guidance on handling generative artificial intelligence to the policy, administration, community and business sectors. The group, representing various disciplines at the Technical University of Munich (TUM), will formulate regulatory proposals and will facilitate exchange on practical questions.

The members of the Generative AI Task Force contribute expertise from a wide variety of perspectives in research on technologies, social sciences, ethics as well as several application areas. These include education, administration, justice, business and health. 

Prof. Isabell Welpe is one of the founding members representing the School of Management. Her research focuses on the digital transformation of companies, business model innovations, the impact of digital technologies on business and organizations, and the future of leadership and work/organizational design.

It is with mixed emotions that we announce the retirement of our esteemed professor Prof. Dr. Martin Moog. After 25 years of dedicated service to our institution, he has decided to transition into a new phase of life.

We are truly grateful for the exceptional contributions that Prof. Moog has made over the years as TUM Chair of Forest Economics. He has been an invaluable member of our faculty, known for his expertise.

Our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl extended his sincere appreciation for Prof. Moog´s unwavering commitment to excellence over the years and for countless contributions to the TUM School of Management. Prof. Moog was gifted a painting on this occasion.

Deepening scientific relations between Munich and Brisbane 
The TUM School of Management highly values the TUM flagship partnership we have with The University of Queensland (UQ).

The visit from UQ Pro-Vice-Chancellor, Brett Lovegrove, shows an incredible commitment on both sides and allowed us to further conversations about how we can deepen our collaborations.

Prof. Thomas Hutzschenreuter, Vice Dean of International Affairs & Alliances, is currently exploring plans to extend our double degree network in the Master in Management and Innovation (MiMI) as well as other ways this unique partnership can thrive.

TUM No. 1 in Germany for Statistics and Operational Research for the Second Time in a Row
In the QS World University Rankings by Subject, Technical University of Munich is ranked 28th in the world in the subject Statistics and Operational Research, moving up 4 places (32nd in 2022) and making us the best German university in this subject.

We are among the TOP 2 in Germany for Business & Management Research (76th worldwide),  moving up 3 places, and among the TOP 5 universities in Germany for  Accounting & Finance.

Among the Global Top 100 for Business and Management Research, TUM remains one of the TOP TWO German universities.

Research at the TUM School of Management is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach. The faculty is engaged in a wide range of research projects that bridge the gap between disciplines. Our research focuses on future trends and real-world solutions that advance innovation-based businesses and benefit society at large. Students benefit from the use of cutting-edge research in the classroom.
➡️ To the QS Ranking: https://lnkd.in/egBmMyKn

Among the best 10 online courses worldwide: Our compliments go to our lecturers Dr. Reiner Hutwelker, Dr. Holly Claudia Ott, and Prof. Dr. Martin Grunow for proving once again that our MOOC-based professional Lean Six Sigma Green Belt certification program offers the best-in-class online learning experiences delivering learner-centric and impactful outcomes on the edX platform.

The TUM Lean Six Sigma Green Belt professional program with edX had already been awarded the QS-Wharton Reimagination Education bronze medal for Best Online Program in 2021 and is highly recognized for its global reach, accessibility, and initiative for the UN Sustainable Development Goals. 

We are looking forward to the final results!
For more information about the Lean Six Sigma certification programs, click here:
🟩 Green Belt ➡ https://lnkd.in/e-buJbna
🟨 Yellow Belt ➡ https://lnkd.in/emgdURdu

Munich is the city with the most start-ups per capita in Germany, overtaking Berlin. 
Additionally, the TUM ecosystem proves to be among the top 10 German start-up hotspots.

Companies like Celonis, Flixbus, and OUTFITTERY have their roots at Technical University of Munich. According to the latest report by startupdetector and Startup-Verband, the TUM ecosystem proves to be among the top 10 German startup hotspots. 

At the TUM School of Management, we educate founders with a strong entrepreneurial mindset to drive innovation and tackle today’s societal challenges.

Get to know the founders of tomorrow's unicorns at the Start-up Stage of the Münchner Management Kolloquium (MMK): nebumind, Mataono, SUMM, Certivity, anybill, Tanso and 36ZERO Vision will pitch their ideas to the Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl and start-up investor and businessman Carsten Maschmeyer.

📅 Join the 30th MMK, experience the live pitches on March 7th, and get inspired by the innovative ideas of the young talents!

Diapers, band-aids, canned food, and sleeping bags are among the most needed items that our student council collects for the victims of the devastating earthquake in Turkey and Syria.

“Our Turkish fellow students approached us and we set up the donation campaign within 4 days,” say Adrian, Estefania, and Uttam from the Student Council TUM School of Management. The donations will be picked up by the Turkish General Consulate in Munich and transported directly to the affected regions.

Our dean Professor Gunther Friedl visited the TUM students today: “I was shocked to hear about the tragic earthquake in Turkey and Syria. Our heartfelt condolences and thoughts go out to all of the victims and their families. The people in the affected regions need all the support we can offer.
Seeing the students of our faculty and beyond taking action makes me very proud, even more so knowing that February is exam season and the students still managed to organize this humanitarian initiative.” 

The Student Council of the TUM School of Management has organized the campaign in cooperation with AStA and other contributors. The Technical University of Munich has provided the necessary infrastructure.

Congratulations to Professor Siddharth Vedula for winning the Supervisory Award! 
Prof. Vedula (left) won the award for his great support and dedication to his doctoral students. His students are working on several interesting topics at his chair including the study of corporate accelerators, renewable energy innovation, and the “dark side” of entrepreneurship.

His students praise him for his great support in developing research projects, while at the same time showing very good leadership skills. Professor Vedula ensures his doctoral students make continuous progress in their research and studies, while also being a mentor and role model to them.

Sid Vedula is a professor at the TUM Entrepreneurship Research Institute. His research interests include the geography of entrepreneurship and environmental entrepreneurship. 

He has studied a wide range of topics, including spatial contagion behavior in the venture capital investment industry, regional differences in the adoption of green building practices, how ideological differences in communities shape renewable energy entrepreneurship, and the dynamics of regional entrepreneurial ecosystems.

Our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl presented the award to Prof. Vedula in the name of the doctoral students. We are very proud to have such an outstanding and dedicated member of our faculty! 

The TUM School of Management recently developed a strategic #partnership with the Beedie School of Business Simon Fraser University. The agreement is a Letter of Intent to develop a strategic partnership between both business schools.

Our Assoc. Dean for International Alliances Professor Thomas Hutzschenreuter traveled to Canada to meet with the Dean of Beedie School of Business Professor Ujwal Kayande.

We share a common interest in many academic and educational fields; and in order to promote future institutional cooperation, we signed a Letter of Intent and agreed to develop and carry out collaborative activities, such as: exchange of scholarly publications and information; exchange of faculty, staff, and students, development of collaborative research projects and programs.

We are delighted to start the new collaboration with the Beedie School of Business and are looking forward to many insightful exchanges with our colleagues and friends from British Colombia!

The newly-elected Dean of the HEC Professor Eloic Peyrache and our Dean Professor Gunther Friedl met in Munich to talk about the current and future collaborations between the HEC Paris and TUM School of Management.
The delegation from Paris included the Director for International Development Philippe Oster and the Director of the International Office Iris Ritter von Fallois. Together with the Vice Dean of Research Professor Joachim Henkel, Associate Dean of International Alliances Professor Thomas Hutzschenreuter, and Manager of International Affairs and Alliances Jamie Snow many new initiatives are planned.

The HEC Delegation also visited our Campus in Heilbronn where they met with representatives of the Dieter Schwarz Foundation Manfred Weigler and Reinhold Geilsdörfer, and our colleagues from the TUM Campus Heilbronn Professor Helmut Krcmar, Professor Jingui Xie, Leonard Przybilla, and Caroline Hoffmann.

We are looking forward to continuing a fruitful and strong partnership with our colleagues and friends from Paris! 🤝

Studying business is popular – really popular. The MBA has been the number one graduate degree in the U.S. for over a decade, and the OECD - OCDE estimates that roughly 25% of higher education students around the world are studying in the field of business. From management and marketing to finance and analytics, business graduates are everywhere.

So business schools have a huge responsibility. After all, they are shaping the behaviours of those who will be leading many of our institutions and businesses of the future. As the world faces growing societal, economic and environmental issues, we need leaders to be well informed and aligned to tackle these problems effectively and appropriately.

Matt Symonds captures the energy and ideas of the MBA World Summit for Forbes, and the importance of human connection. As the Dean of TUM School of Management, Gunther Friedl advises, "Choose your circle wisely."

Read the full article here: https://www.forbes.com/sites/mattsymonds/2022/12/13/power-to-the-student-inspiring-the-next-generation-of-leaders-at-the-mba-world-summit/?sh=54200ccfb32a

The German business magazine WirtschaftsWoche published a new ranking on the number of research publications issued by researchers in the area of business and management currently employed at universities in the German-speaking countries. The TUM School of Management made an outstanding first place among German universities. Research at TUM School of Management is characterized by an interdisciplinary approach and a focus on the interface of management, engineering and the natural and life sciences. The faculty has been engaged in a broad range of research projects that bridge the gap between disciplines. Our research focuses on future trends and real-world solutions that advance innovation-based businesses and benefit society at large. Students benefit from the use of cutting edge research in the classroom.

Grounded in our technological and entrepreneurial ecosystem our scientists research at the intersection of management, engineering, natural, and life sciences. The Research Fest is an event initiated by Prof. Joachim Henkel, which gives researchers the opportunity to present and exchange ideas in the highly interdisciplinary context of our school. 

The three best-exhibited posters on ongoing research projects are granted a prize, sponsored by TUM Management Alumni e.V., and were awarded by our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl.

👏 Congratulations to the Best Poster Award 2022 Winners: 👏
🥇 Linus Hof, Veronika Zilker, Prof. Dr. Thorsten Pachur
🥈 Christina N.eubig, Prof. Dr. Jutta Roosen
🥉 Christoph Gschnaidtner, Prof. Dr. Hanna Hottenrott, Julian Schwierzy

Furthermore, scientists from several academic departments presented their insightful research, which included topics such as

🔋"Grasping the extent of the energy transition: New research venues in economics” by Prof. Svetlana Ikonnikova,
💰"Financing Sustainable Entrepreneurship: ESG Measurement, Valuation, and Performance" by Prof. Paul P. Momtaz, 
💻 "Competition and innovation in digital markets" by  
Prof. Jens Foerderer from TUM Campus #Heilbronn,
🧠"Attention: The cognitive foundation of economic choice" by Prof. Thorsten Pachur,
and an introduction and Round Table on the New TUM Innovation Network ‘#GoTransTech‘ by Prof. Hanna Hottenrott, Prof. Michael Molls, Prof. Holger Patzelt, Prof. Sebastian Pfotenhauer.

🎂 2022 also marks 20 years of interdisciplinary research at the TUM School of Management which was initiated and founded by the first Dean Prof. Ralf Reichwald. 

We are pleased to announce that Professor Chengguang Li received the third place of the “Professor of the Year” (original: “Professor des Jahres”) award, which recognizes the entire commitment of professors in preparing students for their future careers. The annual award is conferred by UNICUM, the largest student magazine in Germany, and sponsored by the two patrons Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF) and Federal Ministry for Economic Affairs and Climate Action (BMWK).

Chengguang is enormously grateful for this recognition and thanks his students, team, and colleagues for their incredible support.

Congratulations to our PhD student Esther Salvi! Based upon the evaluation of her comments as a reviewer, the Entrepreneurship Division of the Academy of Management nominated Esther Salvi as Best Reviewer Award Winner for the 2022 Annual Program!
 
The Entrepreneurship Division is one of the largest divisions within the Academy, and typically receives over 1,000 papers, symposia, and PDW submissions for Program consideration. Typically, only 25 reviewers are selected for this prestigious designation. This is truly a considerable accomplishment! It is a testament to Esther's scholarly efforts.
 
We are happy to share this news and celebrate this accomplishment with her! 

BMW CEO Oliver Zipse held a lecture at Technical University of Munich today. Our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl invited the newly appointed TUM Honorary Professor Zipse to talk on the future challenges for automobility.

It was great to see the vivid exchange of CEO Zipse with the students proves once again, that connecting #business and academia creates insightful synergies. 

CEO of Lufthansa Carsten Spohr (left) held a public lecture at TUM School of Management today. Our Dean Professor Gunther Friedl invites high-profile speakers to his lectures to foster the important exchange between industry and academia.

More than 130 students attended the lecture and asked CEO Spohr their burning questions on the topics of sustainability, crisis management, and the future agenda of Lufthansa. We hope our students will learn from the valuable insights today.

Congratulations to Professor Paul P. Momtaz for winning a WAIFC Young Academic Award 2022 for his paper on Financing Sustainable Entrepreneurship: ESG Measurement, Valuation, and Performance in Token Offerings which was recently published in the Journal of Business Venturing.

The award was presented in Casablanca at the Sustainable Finance Dialogue, a joint initiative between the World Alliance of International Financial Centers (WAIFC) and the UNDP Financial Centres for Sustainability (FC4S) network, the green finance initiative led by the United Nations Development Program (UN DP).
 
Professor Momtaz joined the Professorship of Entrepreneurial Finance at TUM SoM just recently. His paper looks at sustainable Entrepreneurship (SE), which seeks to attain profitability and sustainability goals.

A major research gap concerns the economic attractiveness of SE for entrepreneurs and investors. The question is ambiguous because sustainability orientation creates costly constraints, while startups cannot fully appropriate their positive externalities. Paul Momtaz and co-author Sasan Mansouri relate startups’ Environment, Society, and Governance (ESG) properties obtained from a machine-learning approach (https://lnkd.in/eiJv_4ti) to SE valuation and performance in token offerings.

Startups with salient ESG goals are able to raise financing at more favorable valuations, incentivizing entrepreneurs to adopt ESG goals in the first place. However, their post-funding performance is weaker than in conventional startups, suggesting that investors incur a relative financial loss for backing sustainability-oriented entrepreneurs.

➡️Download the paper: https://lnkd.in/ectuHchS
 
The WAIFC facilitates cooperation between financial centers, the exchange of best practices, and communication with the general public.

 TUM School of Management best in Germany and among the TOP 33 worldwide in Business & Economics

TUM School of Management has made a big leap to the top: Business and Economics at TUM SoM jumps 22 places up to rank 33 in the Times Higher Education World University Ranking 2023 by Subject, making us the best management school in Germany and among the Top 3 in the European Union.

In the category of Industry Income, TUM School of Management ranks again 1st together with only a few other universities. Our engagement with corporate partners proves to be a successful approach with a major benefit to our research, our students, and our alumni.
The THE Subject evaluates the performance of more than 800 universities on the subject of Business & Economics.

The positive trend in rankings continues this year:
The TUM SoM has already performed well in several previous global rankings: our Master´s Program ranks among the top 11% in the category of employability, meaning that our alumni are in high demand among employers. We are especially proud to be ranked 18th place in the category “Value for Money” and among the top business schools in the Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2022.

We are thrilled with these results so far this year and motivated to continue offering our students a high-quality education. 

For the first time ever, the 3 most important rankings in the academic world all rate the Technical University of Munich (TUM) as Germany's best university. 
TUM overtook last year's winner, Ludwig-Maximilians-Universität Munich (LMU), according to a report published Wednesday by the renowned British magazine Times Higher Education (THE). 
The QS World University Ranking and the Shanghai Ranking had already ranked TUM No. 1 university in Germany. According to THE, TUM ranks 30th worldwide and moves 8 places up.

Our Master’s program in Management &Technology (MMT) was ranked among the top 30 worldwide 

In the latest edition of the QS Business Master’s Ranking, TUM School of Management performed among the top 15 % out of 176 programs globally. On top of that, the ranking shows that we offer the best Master in Management and Technology program at a public university in Germany.

The Master´s Program ranks among the top 11% in the category Employability, which means that our alumni are in high demand among emplyers.

We are delighted with this result and motivated to continue offering our students a high-quality education. 

About 30 international professors and young researchers discussed the latest developments in Deep Reinforcement Learning for dynamic decision problems in logistics and healthcare in a 3-day workshop at our TUM Campus Heilbronn.

The workshop was organized by professors Gudrun Kiesmüller, Jingui Xie and Stefan Minner and included presentations and interactive sessions, such as a research pitch and a coding challenge.

“As a PhD student, I presented my research project and received a lot of valuable feedback. I also discussed my working paper with two experienced researchers, which was a great exchange of ideas and I could learn from their detailed suggestions,” said Yihua Wang.

The workshop focused on applying Deep Reinforcement Learning (DRL) to decision-making problems in inventory management, transportation, production, auction games, and healthcare. Due to the 𝘂𝗻𝗶𝗾𝘂𝗲 𝗰𝗵𝗮𝗿𝗮𝗰𝘁𝗲𝗿𝗶𝘀𝘁𝗶𝗰𝘀 𝗼𝗳 𝘁𝗵𝗲𝘀𝗲 𝗽𝗿𝗼𝗯𝗹𝗲𝗺𝘀, it is challenging to adapt reinforcement learning to efficiently solve real-world problems. Typically, the problems are high-dimensional and have large uncertainties, which complicates the learning process.

“I massively enjoyed the workshop, and the presentations by senior faculty and Ph.D. students were truly thought-provoking. For example, I counted four ingenious and generalizable ideas for dealing with large action spaces: Ideas that will contribute to further adoption of DRL in practical contexts. It was great catching up with collaborators on the subject, but it was perhaps even more valuable to connect with so many new people who bring exciting new ideas to the area.“ says Prof. Willem van Jaarsveld of Eindhoven University of Technology.

Key learnings include:

Some real-world problems can be solved better with smart other heuristics instead of applying DRL

New promising ideas have been developed to solve problems with DRL and large action spaces

Good domain knowledge is needed to solve real-world problems with DRL

Thank you to all participants for your great contributions!

We are TUM Podcast on Virtual Reality in teaching with Prof. David Wuttke
Since the start of the pandemic, online teaching has become the new normal. Virtual reality can create new opportunities here: for example, visiting virtual lecture halls as an avatar to interact with others.

What sounds like a vision is already a reality for David Wuttke, Assistant Professor of Supply Chain Management at TUM Campus Heilbronn, who uses virtual reality in teaching.

In the Technical University of Munich's podcast series "We are TUM", he talks to us about the benefits and current limitations of 3D spaces.

Tune in (in German, minutes 0:00 to 9:56).

The Chairman of the Board of Management of BMW AG Oliver Zipse was appointed honorary professor at the Technical University of Munich (TUM) today. Zipse has been teaching courses on the transformation of the automotive industry at the TUM School of Management since 2019.

The "CEO Pitch" is the highlight of the seminar "Innovative Automotive Production and Current Transformation Fields", which Oliver Zipse has been holding at the TUM School of Management since 2019. Here, the BMW CEO not only teaches the theoretical basics of global markets, production systems and digital innovations. The students also develop their own analyses and strategies for current challenges in the industry in exchange with various departments of the company. The course regularly receives excellent ratings in student evaluations.

"Hardly any other sector is as crucial for Germany as the automotive industry is for the country as a business location. That's why the importance of its transformation extends far beyond the industry itself," emphasizes Prof. Gunther Friedl, Dean of the TUM School of Management. "This makes it all the more important that we train students who not only know the theory, but also the corporate world. No lecture, no matter how good, can replace teamwork on real issues."

Our Executive MBA and Executive MBA in Business & IT were invited to an event organized by Google and McKinsey on the future of Electric Vehicles at Google’s headquarters in Munich. 
 
"I have met and connected with a few people from the event during the get-together and definitely would like to pick up the conversation in the future. Maybe we will have a chance to collaborate, that would be very exciting”, says Heidi Liu, EMBA BIT student.

Richard Bergmann also an EMBA BIT participant, adds: " I very much enjoyed exchanging ideas and thoughts with EV experts across industries. Having experience in the automotive industry, I found it fascinating to learn how the rapidly growing EV market could disrupt the established automotive retail industry. New EV manufacturers innovate on data-driven customer experiences and startups emerge in the EV ecosystem with entirely new business ideas."
 
Thanks to Michael Complojer and Denis Karaman from Google for letting our Executive MBA students be part of this event and enabling a space of networking in such a welcoming atmosphere!
 
Do you also want to broaden your network and be part of our Executive MBA community?
Learn more and apply for an Executive MBA program! https://www.lll.tum.de/executive-mbas/

"The 1st TUM School of Management Ph.D. Summer School at TUM Campus Heilbronn is a great success," says Professor David Wuttke, one of the Summer School's co-organizers.

Regarding his course on the review process, he observes, "I am impressed with the student's progress in my course. Having reviewed papers virtually the first time on Monday, they already created strong reviews by Friday, meeting high-quality standards."

Other topics include the economics of digitization and information by Professor Jens Foerderer, Field Experiment: Start to Finish by Professor Philipp Lergetporer, and Empirical Sustainability Analytics by Professor Michael Stich.

"Bringing together doctoral students from all TUM campuses is a unique opportunity for us to learn with and from each other. In particular, the social program is a perfect occasion for networking with peers," says Rossella Rocchino. She participated as one of TUM's first academic training program (ATP) scholarship recipients during the first week.

This Ph.D. Summer School was a true inter-campus collaboration, including the support and organization of Carina Strohmeier, Professor Alwine Mohnen, Professor Joachim Henkel, and Professor Gunther Friedl.

Based on the initial feedback, we plan to expand this format further and offer the next Ph.D. Summer School in September 2023.

Congratulations to Prof. Gudrun Kiesmüller, Professor of Operations Management and Center Director of the Center for Digital Transformation at TUM Campus Heilbronn. 

During the 21st International Symposium on Inventories in Budapest, Prof.  Kiesmüller (on the right) received the Service Award of the International Society for Inventory Research (ISIR) for her outstanding contributions to the operation of the Society.

Within the Society, Prof. Kiesmüller is section chairperson for “Interfaces of Inventory with Transportation, Production, Finance and Marketing” and has been a member of ISIR for many years. The award was presented by Attila Chikan, Executive Vice President of the Society for Inventory Research.
 

According to the renowned Financial Times Master in Management Ranking our Master in Management & Technology has improved two places since last year and ranks now 47 best in the world. It is the only top Management program offered at a business school of a technical university in Germany. We are especially proud to be ranked 18th place in the “Value for Money” category. The ranking takes into account factors such as alumni career progress, the schools' diversity, and international research and experience. We are very pleased with our continuous improvement!

Two and half days of hard work paid off for our winning team of the TUM Business Game 2022. Congratulations to our students:
 
●        Ceren Sensoy | TUM M.Sc. Management & Technology
●        Sanchit Nevatia | TUM M.Sc. Management 
●        Niels Nielsen | TUM M.Sc. Sustainable Management & Technology
●        Kirill Molchanov | TUM B.Sc. Management & Technology
 
This year, 60 students were preselected out of a pool of 400 applicants for the TUM Business Game, the biggest case study competition in Munich. In different teams, they faced real-world business challenges designed by top-class partners Microsoft, SAP, Accenture and Siemens. With the help of the industry partners, the teams had to solve cases that included the development of a profitability analysis for a vertical farming project and a concept for a new modern way of working remotely.
 
The winning team found it challenging to blend the ideas of all members into one solution that everybody could agree on. But for Kirill Molchanov, the diversity of the team turned out to be a decisive factor: “Each team member came from a different background and hence brought with them a different skill set that helped us to analyze the case study in a multidimensional way.” Ceren Sensoy is convinced that the skills that they developed at TUM School Management were crucial to their victory: “We were able to win this game because TUM School of Management equipped us with skills we acquired in courses such as Finance, Strategy, Marketing, and Entrepreneurship.”
 
A lively exchange between students and industry partners
 
In between solving the cases, all participants had the opportunity to connect with like-minded students as well as industry experts. A chance that winner Sanchit Nevatia did not want to miss out on: “The combination of analyzing interesting business case studies and broadening my professional network intrigued me and made me want to participate.”
 
By taking part in the TUM Business Game, the project partners can find potential employees who meet their high standards. “TUM students fit perfectly into our world because they combine strategy and technology,” said Angelika Kasperek from Accenture. Dominik Gursch from Microsoft added that the fresh ideas from TUM students help the company gain a deeper understanding of their projects.
 
Naturally, the project partners also wanted to return this favor and create added value beyond the actual competition. Thus, they gave students insights into their day-to-day experiences and discussed current developments in their respective industries. Winner Niels Nielsen learned a lot during the event: “The TUM Business Game was a great opportunity to see what topics the four companies are working on and to make many exciting contacts.”
 
TUM Business Game - Building the bridge between companies and academia
 
The TUM Business Game is the biggest case study competition in Munich. Since 2016, it has been organized by students for students. Finding solutions for current challenges prepares them for developing successful business concepts in the future. Even though the cases are taken out of real-life situations, the students can make mistakes - in the end, the TUM Business Game is just a game. With this safety in mind, they are encouraged to experiment and find innovative and out-of-the-box solutions. The event gives students the opportunity to make themselves known to potential employers. Vice versa, our top-class partners can find potential employees that fit their expectations perfectly.

In an interview for Deutschlandfunk Prof. David Wuttke explains the results of the study, which he conducted with Ankit U. (PhD Student), Prof. Enno Siemsen (Professor of Operations and Information Management, Wisconsin School of Business), and Dr. Alexandra Wuttke-Linnemann (Landeskrankenhaus (AöR) Zentrum für psychische Gesundheit im Alter).

 Listen to the audio and find out about the #keylearnings for the #future workplace: lnkd.in/eM-JQK_p 
(available in German, 4:32 Min)

"A daunting task lies ahead for scientists and engineers to guide society toward environmentally sustainable management during the era of the Anthropocene."
 
This quote by Nobel laureate Paul Crutzen is at the beginning of the new book #CircularEconomy by the TUM Senior Excellence Faculty and makes it clear that our society is facing profound changes. More than ever, our entrepreneurial courage is needed for change, for a new sense of responsibility and for sustainable action.
 
The book "Circular Economy" was published in May 2022 by TUM.University Press, it summarizes the results of a symposium of the same name in summer 2021, which was organized as part of our TUM Forum Sustainability. Experts from science and industry worked out recommendations for action in a multi-stage process but also identified a need for research.
The editors of the book include the former Dean of the TUM School of Management (TUM SoM) Prof. Ralf Reichwald, Professor of Circular Economy at the TUM SoM Prof. Magnus Fröhling, Science Manager Dr. Birgit Herbst-Gaebel, former professor of water quality and waste technology Prof. Peter Wilderer, and speaker of the TUM Senior Excellence Faculty and director of TUM Institute for Advanced Studie Prof. Michael Molls.
 
The interdisciplinary group of "Emeriti of Excellence" forms the TUM Senior Excellence Faculty. Its members can look back on many years of research, teaching and organizational activities.
 
➡️ Further information:
https://lnkd.in/eQVm47cq
 
📘 Free download of the e-book (German-English):
https://lnkd.in/eapvXekS

In the latest edition of the Academic Ranking of World Universities, TUM is ranked the #best university in Germany. Technische Universität München came 56th in the worldwide rankings and was thus the new number one in Germany ahead of LMU Munich (57th) and the University of Heidelberg (70th). In the European Union it ranks number 7.

The annual Academic Ranking of World Universities, prepared by the Shanghai Rankings, assesses the research achievements of universities based on the number of scientific papers published in important journals such as Nature and Science, the citation frequency of the researchers, and the number of #Nobel laureates and Fields Medal winners.

See ranking: http://www.shanghairanking.com/rankings/arwu/2022

Tech-savvy business experts can help companies to get ahead. That insight inspired the launch in 2002 of the TUM School of Management, which combines expertise in management sciences with technological knowhow. What was a first among German universities 20 years ago is now seen as a sure road to success.

TUM President Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann and Dean of TUM SoM Prof. Gunther Friedl, explain the excellent concept behind Germany’s most innovative business school: go.tum.de/154806

The scholarships for our Master in Finance and Information Management (FIM) were awarded yesterday during the Summer Symposium of the TUM Chair of Management Accounting.

Congratulations to the scholarship holders of the FIM class of 2021 David Bayer, Olena Boieva, Mariana Pedraza-Copete, Anaís García González, Heiko Hoppe, Uladzimir Smalei, Vlada Yatskovskaya, Yu Jung Yang and Philipp Wiegand. 
 
The TUM Management Alumni e.V. and the TUM Fördergesellschaft Controlling e.V. have created a special scholarship program in cooperation with our FIM corporate partners and Carsten Maschmeyer to offer monthly financial assistance.

We are proud to have corporate partners, who see the value in supporting the academic career of our students to be the responsible leaders of tomorrow. Scholarship donors include in cooperation with TUM Management Alumni e.V. Celonis represented by Ngoc Anh Ngo, Allianz Global Investors (AGI), Ergo and in cooperation with the TUM Fördergesellschaft Controlling e.V. investor Carsten Maschmeyer represented by Carl Zülch und Jan Schierle.
 
The ceremony was moderated by the FIM professor Prof. Rudi Zagst. The scholarship was awarded by the Dean and Chairman of the Board Prof. Gunther Friedl and by the Director of the TUM Management Alumni e.V. Pamela Pollich. We thank everyone for their great support and participation in the event. 
 
The scholarship program is used to support talented individuals who have excelled in performance and community involvement. In addition, diversity in the study program is particularly promoted.

More information about the scholarship program.

TUM School of Management was once again ranked among the top Business Schools in the latest Global Ranking of Academic Subjects (GRAS) 2022 released today. TUM School of Management secured No. 1 for management research in Germany five years in a row now. Worldwide, TUM School of Management ranks as the only German school among the Top 150 Management Schools.

Since 2009, the Academic Ranking of World Universities (ARWU) by academic subjects has been published annually by the Shanghai Ranking Consultancy. This release contains rankings of universities in 54 subjects across Natural Sciences, Engineering, Life Sciences, Medical Sciences, and Social Sciences. In total, more than 1,800 out of 4,000 universities across 93 countries and regions were listed in the rankings. Universities are ranked by several indicators of academic or research performance. The GRAS rankings use a range of academic indicators and third-party data to measure the performance of world universities in respective subjects, including research output, research influence, international collaboration, research quality, and international academic awards.

In the latest edition of the respected QS World University Ranking, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is ranked number one among German universities for the eighth time in succession. It is also number three in the European Union and is ranked among the top 50 universities in the world.

The British university service provider QS Quacquarelli Symonds compiles its university quality rankings through surveys of academics and employers. It also assesses the number of citations of published research, the faculty-student ratio and the percentages of international students and staff.

TUM moved up to 49th place worldwide and is thus yet again the top-ranked German university – followed by LMU on rank 59. Within the EU TUM is the third best university, behind Université PSL and Institut Polytechnique, both from Paris.

19th overall in engineering

In the most recent issue of the QS World University Rankings by Subject, in which QS ranks universities by subject areas and individual disciplines, TUM placed 19th in engineering and 28th in natural sciences. In five individual disciplines it scored top-25 rankings, including 16th in physics/astronomy and 18th in electrical engineering.

TUM also regularly achieves excellent results in other international rankings. For example, it holds the 38th position in the THE World University Ranking and is number 12 worldwide in the Global University Employability Ranking, in which companies rate the quality of graduates.

The prices of food continue to rise. But what can be done about it? The German science show Galileo talked to Professor Johannes Sauer, chair of Production and Resource Economics at the TUM School of Management, about possible solutions (Min. 4:45).

In its “THE Impact Ranking“, the renowned British magazine “Times Higher Education” investigates the effectiveness of universities in various categories oriented to the United Nations’ global Sustainable Development Goals. In the Industry, Innovation and Infrastructure category the ranking looks at the number of research publications in fields which are of great importance for sustainably effective innovations. The ranking also investigates how often research work is cited in patents, how many start-ups a university has spun off and how much external research funding the universities receive from industry.

TUM scored the maximum possible number of points in the ranking, thus sharing the top position worldwide with the University of British Columbia in Canada and University of Twente in the Netherlands. TUM regularly demonstrates its internationally outstanding performance in other rankings as well.

For more information see: TUM-Website.

Among the Global Top 100 for Business and Management Research TUM School of Management remains the number 1 business school at a technical university and one of the top two German business schools worldwide. TUM School of Management is now ranked in place 79 worldwide, 20 places up compared to the previous year.

The QS World University Rankings are a worldwide university ranking conducted by QS Quacquarelli Symonds since 2004. The QS World University Rankings by Subject 2021 cover a total of 51 disciplines, grouped into five broad subject areas. They are compiled annually to help prospective students identify the leading universities in a particular subject. Research citations, along with the results of major global surveys of employers and academics are used to rank universities.

Joining us for his new appointment at TUM School of Management in Munich is Prof. Dr. Thorsten Pachur, Professor of Behavioral Research Methods. His research and areas of interest lie in the fields of adaptive cognition, decision-making, cognitive modeling, and process tracing. With such a rich depth and breadth of knowledge, we could not be more pleased to have him further enrich our already outstanding team of educators. We are delighted to welcome Prof. Pachur, and we wish him a successful start at TUM!

April 1, 2022. Joining us for his new appointment at TUM School of Management in Munich is Prof. Dr. Thorsten Pachur, Professor of Behavioral Research Methods. His research investigates adaptive cognition, that is, how the psychological mechanisms underlying thinking, reasoning and decision-making are shaped by the structure of the environment. A key idea is that successful decision-making can arise from the intelligent use of simple strategies – heuristics - that exploit regularities in the environment. Dr. Pachur’s research covers decision-making under risk and judgment, under uncertainty, and he is also interested in the role of intuition, and how decision-making develops across the lifespan. In his research, Dr. Pachur employs an integrative multi-method approach that includes behavioral experiments, computational modeling, process tracing (e.g., eye tracking), and neuroimaging.

Thorsten Pachur studied psychology at the Free University Berlin and the University of Sussex. He obtained his PhD in psychology from the Free University Berlin in 2006 and his habilitation from the University of Basel in 2012. He has worked as a research scientist at the University of Basel (2006-2012) and as a senior research scientist at the Max Planck Institute for Human Development (2012-2022).

Congratulations on your new appointment and best of luck in your future endeavors here at the TUM School of Management!

Congratulations Zarah!

Starting in April 2022, the 31-year-old Zarah Bruhn will take on the role of the new commissioner for social innovation at the German Federal Ministry of Education and Research (BMBF). Her company socialbee gGmbH has been helping refugees to integrate into the labor market since 2016 – when Syrians fled to Germany to escape the war. Zarah has a lot planned for her new role: “It’s important to me that more capital is made available,” she explains and demands: “Important funding programs should also be made available for social innovations.”

Reade more on the appointment (in German).

Read more on socialbee: Why founding a social start-up is so rewarding.

Hardly any other industry is as globally networked and dependent on supply chains as the production of cars and vehicles. The Dean of the TUM School of Management Prof. Gunther Friedl was invited to speak at the podcast BR24 and points out the short- and medium-term negative consequences of the Ukraine war on the automotive industry (in German, Duration: 7 Min).

March 1, 2022. Joining us for her new appointment at TUM School of Management in Munich is Prof. Dr. Melanie Richards, Professor of Family Business Culture and Ownership. Her research focuses on how family firms’ unique culture affects organisational decision-making and outcomes. Moreover, Melanie Richards’ work seeks to better understand the entrepreneurial and social activities of business families. Thereby her research investigates the families’ financial and non-financial goals, their values and socio-emotional wealth. Her research also analyses family philanthropy and impact investing, which constitute important practical phenomena, yet remain under-theorized in academia. With such a rich depth and breadth of knowledge, we could not be more pleased to have her further enrich our already outstanding team of educators. We are delighted to welcome Prof. Richards, and we wish her a successful start at TUM!

Prof. Dr. Richards is joining the Department of Innovation & Entrepreneurship as Professor of Family Business Culture & Ownership. Prior to joining the TUM School of Management, Melanie Richards was Associate Professor in Entrepreneurship and Innovation at the University of Bath. She also worked for the University of Bristol as Assistant Professor in Management and for the University of St. Gallen as Postdoctoral Researcher at the Center for Family Business after receiving her PhD in Management from the University of St. Gallen in September 2015. As part of her PhD education she spent 12 months as Visiting Scholar at Bayes Business School in London. Prior to her academic career, Melanie Richards gained experience as a consultant working for PwC Management-Consulting in London.

Congratulations on your new appointment and best of luck in your future endeavors here at the TUM School of Management!

What are the various consequences of the war in Ukraine? Experts from the TUM School of Management share with us their insights on different aspects of the conflict between Ukraine and Russia.

• Professor Svetlana Ikonnikova on the consequences for the international energy market. Click here.
• Professor Gunther Friedl on the consequences for the international industry. Click here.
• Professor Sebastian Goerg on the consequences for the European economy. Click here.

Join the brand new Event & Career Center of the Alumni Association!

The new Event & Career Center of the TUM Management Alumni e.V. offers numerous career and networking events of the Alumni Association and its corporate partners, as well as a variety of job offers for students, graduates and alumni of the TUM School of Management. Furthermore, you can profit from being part of a talent pool for more career opportunities.

Benefit from the unique network and the fantastic opportunities by joining the Alumni Association!

Get full access to all events & job offers in just 3 steps:

Are you already a member of the TUM Management Alumni e.V.? If not, you can register here. Once this is done, continue with step 2.

Register here with the new Event & Career Center. It is IMPORTANT that you use the same email address as for the sign-up to the TUM Management Alumni e.V..

Please confirm the email from the Event & Career Center. Now, you’re ready to go!

Virtual Reality (VR) has great potential, which is still vastly untapped in management education. The COVID-19 pandemic forced us to teach remotely and search for meaningful alternatives to online video communication tools. The team of Prof. Dr. David Wuttke, Assistant Professor for Supply Chain Management of TUM School of Management at TUM Campus Heilbronn explored the use of a virtual classroom environment in two courses in the summer term of 2021. In the solution, students and faculty were represented by avatars and communicated in a digital representation of a real classroom.

The white paper is available for download here.

Another year has passed and some of you have successfully graduated.

We are very pleased to announce that this year the Graduation Ceremony for graduates of the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs as well as for EMBA programs will take place on July 22, 2022 at Audimax of the Technical University of Munich. The Graduation ceremony is a festive finale for you and your fellow students to celebrate your successful graduation at the TUM School of Management. Please note that the agenda of this year’s Graduation Ceremony is still being drafted as we rely on the changing COVID-19 safety regulations.

In order to participate in the ceremony, the following requirements need to be fulfilled:

1.) All grades (final thesis included) have to be validated by May 13, 2022 at the latest.

2.) Prior to the event, you need to register via the registration link in your invitation (invitations will be send out in June). Please note, unfortunately, no exceptions will be granted in that matter. Thus please refrain from additional requests.

Please stay tuned for further information on our website: https://www.wi.tum.de/faq-tag-der-fakultaet/

Our graduates from TUM Campus Heilbronn will also be invited to celebrate at the graduation ceremony in Munich. Please note that in addition to the celebration in Munich a separate graduation event at TUM Campus Heilbronn will take place. This so called “Pioneer party” is planned for July 29 – stay tuned for further information, which will follow soon. Meanwhile, if you have any particular questions concerning the graduation in Heilbronn, please reach out to events.hn@mgt.tum.de.

Until then, stay safe and healthy and cherish the time!

Nowadays, fake news and false interpretations circulate very quickly. Especially false information on Covid-19 have undermined scientific evidence and the effect of the vaccines. Read up on how Prof. Gunther Friedl helps debunking a recent myth regarding the Biontech vaccine (in German).

Professor Thomas Hutzschenreuter discusses the usability of AI for managerial decision-making in an article of the FAZ. Algorithms are extremely useful for frequent and stable decision situations such as purchasing, logistics’ as well as maintenance decisions, but fail in infrequent and unstable situations. For rare and unique entrepreneurial decisions a human entrepreneurial decision-maker is still needed and cannot be substituted by AI. Read on here.

TUM awarded an honorary professor to founder and managing director of EUXEA Holding GmbH Dr. Klemens Joos on February 10, 2022. In doing so, TUM honors his expertise in management and politics specializing in the field of stakeholder theory and political decision-making processes as well as his excellent evaluated teaching. Joos is visiting lecturer at the TUM School of Management and teaches the Master course „Political Stakeholder Management”.

According to Dr. Klemens Joos it is crucial to include the relevant decision-makers of the legislative and executive branches as framework-setting secondary stakeholders in research and teaching in the long-term. This leads to a stronger focus on the importance of process competence in intermediary systems. “With Dr. Joos at the TUM School of Management we are doing important pioneering work in this area. His contributions are building bridges in Europe since the fall of the Berlin Wall”, states Dean of the TUM School of Management Prof. Gunther Friedl.

Dr. Joos broad activities and experience range between business administration and political experience, starting as an advisor to a member of the European Parliament from 1988 to 1990. He founded EUTOP in 1990 realizing the potential and future that the reunification of Europe would hold. Dr. Joos has published more than 20 papers in German, English and Japanese including books and articles in applied journals. As visiting professor, Dr. Klemens Joos provides Master students with in-depth insights into the complex decision-making processes of the European Union (EU) as well as into the practice of successful lobbying especially taking into consideration the tensions between the EU institutions.

Professor Thomas Hutzschenreuter has been interviewed by the German television program Tagesschau24 on focus strategies of German listed companies and in particular on current spin-offs and split-ups of large diversified firms. Click here, to see the interview and learn more about his insights.

Joining us this year for their new appointments at TUM School of Management at TUM Campus Heilbronn are Prof. Dr. Martin Meißner and Prof. Dr. Chengguang Li. 

Prof. Dr. Martin Meißner is joining the TUM Campus Heilbronn as Professor of Digital Marketing at the Center for Digital Transformation. Prof. Meißner studied Business Administration at Bielefeld University and subsequently finished his PhD thesis on Preference Measurement for Complex Products at the Chair of Marketing at Bielefeld University. He then received a grant from the DFG for a research stay at Monash University in Melbourne, Australia. Subsequently, he worked as an Associate Professor of Marketing at the University of Southern Denmark, during which time, he also got an Adjunct Senior Lecturer position at Monash University. Before joining the TUM School of Management, he held the Chair of Marketing at the Department of Business and Economics at Zeppelin University.

oining Prof. Dr. Martin Meißner at the TUM Campus Heilbronn is Prof. Dr. Chengguang Li as Professor of Strategic Management at the Global Center for Family Enterprise. Prior to joining TUM, he was an Assistant Professor at Ivey Business School, a Postdoctoral Fellow and project leader for the Industry 4.0 initiative of the German Federal Ministry (BMBF) in Paderborn, and a consultant at the Boston Consulting Group and Roland Berger in Berlin, Munich, and Dubai. His research interests lie in the fields of global strategy, mergers and acquisitions, and strategic alliances and joint ventures, and examines the impact of contextual factors, such as the cultural environment, on multinational enterprise strategies.

Congratulations on your new appointments and best of luck in your future endeavors here at the TUM School of Management!

Each year the TUM School of Management pays tribute to lecturers who have proven outstanding teaching practices with the Best Teaching Award. The award honors their dedication and gives credit to their professional excellence. This year´s award took place in a small ceremony at the Dean´s office as the hygiene regulations during the Tag der Fakultät (Graduation Ceremony) would not allow for it.

The Best Teaching Award is awarded in three categories according to class size.

The Best Teaching Award in the category large-sized classes goes to Prof. Michael Kurschilgen and Dr. Christian Feilcke. Prof. Kurschilgen is professor for managerial economics at TUM School of Management since November 2015. Dr. Christian Feilcke is Academic Councilor at the Chair of Economics since 2012. Both had won the Best Teaching Award in previous years.

The Best Teaching Award in the category middle-sized classes goes to Prof. Benjamin Loos and Yanis Gamarra. Professor Loos studies behavioral and household finance with a particular focus on financial advice, (digital) product innovations like ETFs, fintech and individual investor behavior in general. Yanis Gamarra is Research Assistant and Doctoral Candidate at the Chair of Controlling.

The Best Teaching Award in the category small-sized classes goes to Prof. Philipp Maume, Prof. Sebastian Schwenen und Franziska Heyde. Prof. Philipp Maume’s field of research is the law of capital markets and capital market-oriented companies, of particular interest is the law of financial technology. Prof. Maume had won the Best Teaching Award in previous years. Prof. Sebastian Schwenen is Assistant Professor in Economics of Energy Markets and also affiliated as Research Fellow to the German Institute for Economic Research DIW Berlin and to the Mannheim Institute for Sustainable Energy Studies. Franziska Heyde is coach and lecturer for Entrepreneurship at UnternehmerTUM since 2011, a non-profit organization and leading center for innovation and business creation in Europe.

The Best Teaching Award is being awarded annually since 2013 but had to be cancelled in 2020 due to COVID-19 as the evaluation of the summer semester 2020 was not conducted by TUM CST. The assessment of the winners takes into consideration the class size, the courses grades and teachers grades based on the student´s evaluation from the previous winter and summer semesters.

Research Training Group Advanced Optimization in a Networked Economy

The German Research Foundation (DFG) has awarded another 3 Million Euros to the Technical University of Munich (TUM) based Research Training Group AdONE GRK 2201 (Advanced Optimization in a Networked Economy). This enables AdONE to support the next generation of scientists for an additional 4.5 years.

Scientists and Doctoral students of the TUM School of Management as well as the Departments of Mathematics and Informatics are members of the Research Training Group AdONE.

Optimization of logistics, transport, and mobility

Since 2017, the participating researchers and doctoral students have been working together to develop innovative mathematical methods for the optimal allocation and coordination of resources in modern logistics networks, transportation, and mobility systems.

With applications in airport operations, auction mechanisms, autonomous mobility, car sharing systems, production planning, vehicle routing, or warehousing, AdONE creates the scientific foundations for the continued economic success of many companies in a rapidly changing economic environment.

Interdisciplinary doctoral program AdONE

Doctoral students receive optimal conditions for their doctorate within the framework of the Research Training Group: Embedded in a large research project and an interdisciplinary network of scientists, they can focus on their research and receive financial support for three years.

At the same time, they undergo a qualification program that supports them in their research and prepares them for various career paths through the acquisition of interdisciplinary skills. The Research Training Group AdONE also provides other doctoral students with similar interests access to its network and events.

The TUM School of Management was placed among the top three Business Schools at a Technical University with an overall 70th place moving up six ranks since 2019. The Financial Times ranks European Business Schools according to their management programs available. Our Master in Management and Technology was even ranked TOP 40 in Europe. Furthermore, the TUM School of Management offers two double degree programs with the best-ranked Business School in Europe, the HEC Paris.

The HEC Paris-TUM’s unique double degree program for the Master in Management & Innovation and the Master in Management & Technology (MMT) build on our mutual strengths in management and innovation as well as the interface to technology.

This is the 18th annual Financial Times ranking of European business schools. It is a composite ranking based on the combined performance of Europe’s leading schools across the five main rankings of programs published by the FT in 2021: MBA, Executive MBA, Masters in Management (MiM) and in 2020 for the two rankings of non-degree executive education programs. The ranking measures the schools’ quality and breadth of programs as well the diversity of their faculty.

The last exams have been conducted, the thesis has been handed in – an important milestone has been reached as the studies end. To celebrate this crucial step in our students’ lives, TUM School of Management organized the graduation ceremony “Tag der Fakultät” on November 26, 2021. It was the first time that the graduation had taken place since COVID-19 and after last year´s graduation had to be canceled.

This year, with very strict COVID19-restrictions, the Graduation Ceremony for graduates of the Bachelor’s and Master’s degree programs joyfully took place at the Audimax of the Technical University of Munich. All our graduates were excited to attend the ceremony and prepared their graduation caps. Our Dean Prof. Gunther Friedl welcomed the graduates and their families, who were watching the live stream as only the graduates were allowed to participate in the ceremony. He encouraged everyone to live the entrepreneurial spirit. Prof. Ernstberger welcomed the bachelor graduates by reminiscent his TUM graduation 20 years ago.

During the Master ceremony, the Peter-Pribilla Award was handed to the outstanding master thesis written in 2020 and 2021 by the founding Dean of the TUM School of Management Prof. Ralf Reichwald. The 2020 Award went to Johannes Huber for his Master‘s Thesis on “The Impact of Acquisitions on Software Innovation – The Case of Open Source Software Contributors” and the award for the year 2021 went to Ann Sophie Köller for her master thesis on “Future Urban Mobility in China 2050”.

Furthermore, we had the honor of Regina Neumeyer from Celonis giving an inspiring speech of her career! “You will struggle but keep trying!”, she advised the graduates. Celonis is a company for process mining software, which was founded back in 2011 by former TUM students. It became so successful that in June 2021, Celonis raised a $1bn series D investment at $11bn valuations, becoming New York’s and Germany’s most valuable startup according to Forbes.

At the end of the ceremony, the graduates were honored in a light show, showing their names and profile pictures.

Congratulations to all our graduates, we wish you a lot of success for your future!

On November 18/19, 2021, an inspiring workshop on Textual Analysis and Natural Language Processing (NLP) was held at TUM Campus Heilbronn. Leading researchers and doctoral students from the fields of management, finance, and computer science accepted the invitation of Sebastian Müller, Professor of Finance at the Center for Digital Transformation at the TUM School of Management.

Digital transformation brings with it a flood of data, as well as data from websites, social networks, and other platforms. Most of this data is qualitative and verbal in nature, and therefore initially eludes our quantitatively oriented methods of analysis. In order to make sense of the new data we receive through digitization, we therefore rely on modern and powerful text analytics. With the help of Natural Language Processing (NLP), researchers are able to analyze textual data using computational power. The goal of the workshop was to discuss the latest developments in this field.

“TUM Campus Heilbronn is a young campus that explicitly addresses the impact of digital transformation and the management of family businesses. The topic of textual analysis is closely related to digital change, so regular NLP workshops for our campus are not only appropriate, but in my view almost inevitable”, said Prof. Sebastian Müller.

Workshop participants did not only have the opportunity to expand their knowledge of the latest advances in Natural Language Processing, but also discussed benefits, limitations, and ethical aspects of this new technology. “I am excited about the new research ideas and potential international collaborations in the field of applied textual analysis that will emerge from this workshop”, explained Prof. Müller.

Graduates of the Technical University of Munich (TUM) are in demand with companies worldwide. This is seen yet again in the latest edition of the Global University Employability Ranking, in which TUM holds the number 13 position. This places it among the top four universities in Europe.

The ranking determines which universities are educating the best graduates from the point of view of employers. For the latest edition, around 11,000 managers were surveyed who recruit staff internationally in 23 countries. They work in a wide range of industries and with companies of various sizes. The rankings, which are commissioned annually by the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE), are compiled by the French management consulting firm Emerging and the German market research institute Trendence.

TUM has been well ahead of all other German universities for years. In the new rankings it placed 13th and is among the top four in Europe along with the University of Cambridge (4th), the University of Oxford (8th), and the ETH Zurich (11th). In the European Union it is number one.

Students highly satisfied

The students also rate the study conditions at TUM very highly. In the most recent CHE University Rankings, which divide German universities into three groups regarding various subjects, TUM scored dozens of placings in the top group. For these rankings, the assessments of a university’s own students are the most important factor.

In international rankings, where research plays a key role, TUM also achieves excellent results on a regular basis. For example, it recently placed among the 25 best universities in computer science, engineering and natural sciences in the THE World University Rankings by Subject.

More information:

• Global University Employability Ranking 2021
• TUM in rankings

Congratulations to the winners of the Ralf-Reichwald-Award 2021 Tanya Göttinger and Sabrina Huber (accepted by Katinka Kleinheinz on behalf of Sabrina Huber). Named after the first Dean of TUM School of Management, Prof. Dr. rer. pol. Prof. h.c. Dr. h.c. Ralf Reichwald, the award recognizes outstanding achievements of the school’s administration.

Prof. Ralf Reichwald himself, together with the present Dean of the TUM School of Management Prof. Gunther Friedl, handed the award to Tanya Göttinger and Sabrina Huber, for their pioneering spirit during the development of the structures and study programs of the TUM School of Management at the Heilbronn Campus. Both contributed significantly to the fact that the launch of the Heilbronn Campus of the TUM School of Management turned out a success. In 2018, the first Master’s students were welcomed, followed by the Bachelor’s students one year later. In addition, the Master in Management & Innovation program as well as the PhD and the Executive Education program were launched successfully in Heilbronn. With over 300 students now enrolled in the management degree programs, a lively campus culture has emerged.

The TUM School of Management has awarded an honorary doctorate to former EU Commission President Romano Prodi on October 25, 2021 at the TUM Audimax. In doing so, it honored the economist and two-time Italian prime minister for his outstanding academic and political contributions to economics and European unification.

The laudatory speech for the Doctor honoris causa was held by former Bavarian Minister President Dr. Dr. h.c. Edmund Stoiber via video message. Prodi was “one of the fathers of the reunification of the continent” due to his importance in the enlargement of the EU to include numerous Eastern European countries. EU Commission President Ursula von der Leyen also sent a video message. She recalled that the euro was introduced during Prodi’s term as Commission President.

Prof. Gunther Friedl, Dean of the TUM School of Management, emphasized Prodi´s vision on entrepreneurship in shaping globalization and worldwide challenges such as climate change. Prodi remains committed to this field today. Prof. Thomas F. Hofmann, President of TUM, called Romano Prodi a significant change agent. “Europeans will continue to benefit from your idealism, dedication, commitment and achievements for many years to come”. Prior to the event, he visited the recently opened Munich Urban Colab, where TUM and UnternehmerTUM, the Center for Innovation and Entrepreneurship, are working with startups, experienced companies, creatives, social actors and the city of Munich on sustainable smart city innovations.

The ceremony included a panel discussion, where Romano Prodi, the students Fiona Burckhardt and Tamara Nauhardt as well as Prof. Eugénia da Conceição-Heldt, holder of the Chair of European and Global Governance, discussed the future of Europe. Europe’s most important task today is to maintain dialogue between the U.S. and China superpowers in the face of growing tensions, Prodi conclude.

Prof. Romano Prodi is considered one of the founders of the Italian school of industrial economics. He was a professor of economics and industrial policy at the University of Bologna from 1971 to 1999, and a visiting researcher at Harvard and Stanford. In addition to his outstanding academic achievements, he is also awarded an honorary doctorate for his ability to apply his scientific knowledge to social progress. Both as President of the European Commission from 1999 to 2004 and as Italian Prime Minister from 1996 to 1998 and from 2006 to 2008, he has made outstanding contributions in the fields of innovation and entrepreneurship, industrial, competition and monetary policy. In this way, he has made a significant contribution to modernizing the EU and strengthening its economy.

TUM School of Management was ranked among the top 6 EU Business Schools in the 2022 Times Higher Education World University Rankings by Subject, which was published today, and secures an overall 55 place worldwide. More than 795 universities were ranked on the subject of Business & Economics.

We are proud to have proven once again our ongoing advancements and excellence in business and economics as we improved strongly since last year´s ranking (64) and moved up nine places to rank 55. The ranking assesses universities by their performance in the following disciplines: business and management, accounting and finance, and economics and econometrics. In the category of Industry Income, TUM School of Management received full points and therefore is among the worldwide leaders.

The ranking of the British magazine “Times Higher Education” uses performance indicators such as the reputation of universities in research and teaching, and data such as the number of publications per researcher, citations per publication, the supervision ratio of teachers and students, the third-party funds acquired from industry and the degree of internationalization are evaluated. The indicators are weighted differently depending on the subject culture.

In the recently published main edition of “THE World University Rankings,” which evaluates universities as a whole, TUM was ranked 38th worldwide and 10th in Europe. TUM is also regularly rated very highly in other international subject rankings: In the “QS World University Rankings by Subject,” it ranks among the top 50 universities in ten subjects, and in the “Global Rankings of Academic Subjects” (“Shanghai Ranking”) in nine areas. In the “Global University Employability Ranking,” in which companies evaluate the quality of graduates, TUM ranks twelfth.

Fantastic news: TUM is ranked best German university and 31 worldwide for Blockchain.

The TUM Blockchain Research Cluster is an interdisciplinary network of chairs and research groups, which investigate and further develop the technical, economic, legal and social aspects of blockchain-based solutions. Many TUM School of Management students are also involved in blockchain projects.

It’s CoinDesk´s first international ranking on Blockchain. The news site that specializes in bitcoin and digital currencies started the ranking 2020 only tracking U.S. schools.

• For more information on TUM Blockchain Research Cluster, click here.

• For more information on the ranking, click here.

We are pleased to announce that the TUM School of Management’s study program Master in Management & Technology was ranked 23rd at the annual QS Management Masters Rankings. Thereby, TUM School of Management is among the two highest ranked German business schools in this category and the best Business School at a Technical University in Germany.

Universities and schools are assessed by measuring five different metrics: employability, entrepreneurship and alumni success, return on investment, thought leadership and class & faculty diversity. The TUM School of Management ranks best of all German Business Schools and 13^th overall in the category employability.

TUM School of Management offers its Master in Management & Innovation as a double degree program in cooperation with the HEC Paris School of Management, which took the first place in this year’s ranking. The QS Master in Management Rankings use data collected in the QS Global Employer Survey, the QS Global Academic Survey and a survey completed by the business schools themselves.

Find more information on the QS World University Rankings here.

Who carries weight in the media, research and politics? The new F.A.Z. Economists Ranking 2021 has listed the 100 most influential economists in Germany – among them TUM School of Management professors Holger Patzelt and Ann-Kristin Achleitner.

Prof. Dr. Patzelt, who ranks 26^th in the overall ranking and is among the top 15 most cited researchers in scientific literature, has been a Professor of Entrepreneurship and Chair of Entrepreneurship at TUM School of Management since 2010. Professor Patzelt conducts research on business ventures, strategic entrepreneurship and startup failure. His work covers both psychological aspects, such as cognition and decision-making by entrepreneurs, and economic factors, such as the behavior and success of entrepreneurial organizations. At the TUM Entrepreneurship Research Institute, he is one of the driving researchers in the field of entrepreneurship.

Prof. Dr. Dr. Achleitner, who ranks 87, has held the Chair of Entrepreneurial Finance and, since 2003, she has been Scientific Co-Director of the Center for Entrepreneurial and Financial Studies (CEFS) at TUM. Her research is focused on entrepreneurial finance with a focus on the financing of innovation, venture capital, private equity, and family businesses.

The FAZ ranking is based on how often economists are quoted in the media, politics, social media, science and errata, analyzed by Unicepta. The impact of their research is then derived from this.

Entrepreneurship at the TUM School of Management

Developing an entrepreneurial mindset is a key element of our mission at the TUM School of Management. Thinking outside the box, being creative and innovative, taking risks and learning from failure, and approaching problems in a proactive way is important for any career in today’s dynamic and technology‑driven world. We educate our students and researchers on entrepreneurship in interdisciplinary and international formats. Plenty of success stories show that this inspires and enables our students, scientists and alumni to think and act entrepreneurially.

In today’s new issue of the annual Financial Times Masters in Management rankings, TUM School of Management’s Master in Management & Technology ranked among the top 50 programs worldwide and made a huge improvement compared to the previous ranking. The Master in Management & Technology is now ranked 49^th in the overall ranking and thereby, ranks second in Germany among the Master in Management programs offered by a public university. It is also the only program in the top group offered at the business school of a technical university in Germany.

In the category “value for money”, TUM School of Management is on 16^th place in the ranking, and second in Germany.

“I am extremely proud to have scored such a fantastic place in this year’s FT Ranking. The strong improvement shows our commitment to our high quality approach and the value of our interdisciplinarity in teaching and research at TUM School of Management”, says Prof. Dr. Gunther Friedl, Dean of the TUM School of Management.

This is the 17^th edition of the FT ranking with more than 120 Masters in Management programs included in the ranking. The rankings are calculated according to information collected through two separate surveys. The first one is completed by the business schools, the second survey by alumni who finished their master studies in 2018. Overall, 17 criteria are evaluated and weighted by the newspaper. The Financial Times’ ranking gives strong credit for high salaries and salary increases three years after completion of the master’s degree. It awards additional points for factors such as: value for money, aims achieved, gender balance and diversity of international representation among students, faculty and school advisory boards.

More information

Find the complete 2021 FT Masters in Management Ranking here.

Latest THE Rankings released

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has again moved up in the respected THE World University Rankings and now ranks among the 10 best universities in Europe. In the European Union, the top rankings are held by LMU Munich and TUM.

Compiled by the British magazine Times Higher Education (THE), the rankings take various factors into account: Scientists and scholars worldwide are surveyed on the research and teaching reputations of the universities. Other criteria include the number of publications per researcher, citations per publication, the teacher-student ratio, third-party funding raised from the private sector and the degree of internationalization.TUM moved up again this year, advancing to number 38. As a result, the two Munich universities (LMU: 32nd) are the EU leaders in the rankings. In Europe TUM is ranked 10th.

In the most recent THE World University Rankings by Subject, TUM is placed 14th in computer science, 24th in engineering, 25th in physical sciences (comprising most natural sciences subjects) and 46th in life sciences. TUM also regularly achieves excellent results in other international rankings, including 12th place worldwide in the Global University Employability Ranking, in which companies rate the quality of graduates.

More information:

• THE World University Rankings 2022
• TUM in rankings

TUM climbs higher as best German technical university

The Technical University of Munich (TUM) has further improved its standing in the current “Shanghai Ranking” (Academic Ranking of World Universities). It remains the best German technical university and is among the six top technical universities worldwide. This year TUM climbed to number 52 in the global ranking of all universities, moving up two positions. TUM is one of only four German universities to make the ranking’s top 100, together with Ludwig-Maximilians-University Munich (48), Heidelberg University (57) and the University of Bonn (84). TUM also enjoys a leading position within the EU, ranked eighth.

“Shanghai Ranking” Criteria

The annual “Shanghai Ranking” evaluates the worldwide research performance of universities. Also known as the “Academic Ranking of World Universities”, it was developed at the Shanghai Jiao Tong university. Central evaluation criteria are the number of publications in important academic journals such as “Nature” and “Science”, the citation rate of academics at the respective university as well as the number of Nobel Prizes and Fields Medals (The Fields Medal is one of the highest distinctions in mathematics).

TUM ranks in the top 50 in nine subjects

The 2021 “Shanghai Ranking” even places the Technical University of Munich (TUM) among the 50 best universities in the world in nine different subjects:

•    Remote Sensing: 5 (in Germany: 1)
•    Environmental Sciences and Engineering: 15 (in Germany: 1)
•    Aerospace Engineering: 17 (in Germany: 1)
•    Electrical and Electronic Engineering: 19 (in Germany: 1)
•    Medical Technology: 21 (in Germany: 2)
•    Food Science and Technology: 37 (in Germany: 1)
•    Agricultural Sciences: 38 (in Germany: 2)
•    Biotechnology: 49 (in Germany: 1)
•    Human Biological Sciences: 50 (in Germany: 6)

TUM also regularly scores very well in other international rankings. The “QS World University Ranking” declared TUM the best university in Germany for the seventh time in a row. The ranking rated TUM third among universities in the European Union and included TUM among the 50 best universities in the world.

More information:

• Shanghai University ranking

• Shanghai Rankings by subject

• TUM in rankings