The Technical University of Dresden has held the title of Excellence University for ten years – as one of eleven German universities. We want to continue playing in the Champions League in research and teaching in the future.
Dresden (dpa/sn) – According to Rector Ursula Staudinger, the Technical University of Dresden (TUD) has gained a national and international reputation with its status of excellence. “After ten years, the balance is positive. It’s a success story. We have been given room for maneuver and opportunities that we would not have had without the title,” said the professor in an interview with the German Press Agency. The excellence has not only increased the visibility of the university, but also made it easier to recruit important researchers from all over the world. “The TU Dresden is seen in a new light and perceived as an attractive employer.”
The federal government’s excellence initiative has caused a “win-win spiral”, said Staudinger, who worked for many years as a psychologist and geriatric researcher at a US university. From 2012 to 2026, a total of 417 million euros would flow to the TU Dresden. In addition, the acquisition of third-party funds has increased annually since 2012 from 227 million euros to 305 million euros. This is not least due to the outstanding researchers. “We are now also implementing this positive feedback loop in teaching. We want to be at the forefront in teaching as well and incorporate the latest findings from excellent research areas into the Bachelor’s degree.”
“Our vision is to permanently establish TU Dresden as a top university – as a globally oriented and regionally anchored university for the 21st century,” explained the Rector. With research and teaching, the aim is to contribute to solving the global challenges facing humanity. She cited the climate crisis, anti-democratic developments, digitization and demographic change as examples. In doing so, TUD must further increase its international visibility. Already today, the proportion of foreign students is almost 19 percent – a doubling since 2012.
According to Staudinger, the TU Dresden is already dealing with the continued existence of the excellence status and the three excellence clusters. That is a priority. But it is also important to ensure cohesion at the university. Areas of TUD that are not explicitly involved in excellence should not be forgotten. “We want to ensure the positive spillover effects from the Excellence Initiative – i.e. the spillover effects on other areas of the university. There must be no front formation or two-tier society within the university.” The Rectorate wants to take care of that.
“That’s one of the reasons why we created a Vice-Rectorate for University Culture after I took office in the summer of 2020. There must be a common canon of values,” said the Rector. Mutual appreciation is a basic condition of cooperation, as is honesty in action. “We consider openness to other opinions and perspectives to be an essential driver of innovation.” Management culture is often neglected in science. But that is exactly what the TU Dresden attaches great importance to. Last but not least, the campus must be designed in such a way that there can be an open exchange between students, professors and employees with people from the city society and the region.
According to Staudinger, a university can be a model for living together in society. “Here you can learn the basic tools of democracy and the assumption of responsibility. A university gives room for creativity and enables the exchange of opinions.” It’s about revitalizing the campus and promoting diversity. “We want to attract students of all ages, genders and social backgrounds to our cosmopolitan campus. It’s not just about enabling them to have a high level of professional expertise, but also to enable them to think independently and critically and to assume responsibility.”
