The new scientific directorate, consisting of Prof. Dr. Volker Coors as scientific director and Prof. Dr. Uta Bronner and Prof. Dr. Berndt Zeitler as deputies, took over from Prof. Dr. habil. Ursula Eicker as of 1 June 2019.
The new faces of the management are good acquaintances: Prof. Dr. Volker Coors is already professor for computer science and mathematics at the HFT since September 2002 and successful researcher at the IAF. His research focuses on 3D geodata infrastructures and the visualization of spatial data. Furthermore, he is speaker of the research focus "Technologies for Spatial Data and Simulation". Prof. Dr. Uta Bronner has been a professor in the Business Psychology program at HFT since 2012. In addition to her new role as deputy of the scientific director, Prof. Dr. Bronner is the scientific director of the innovation lab M4_LAB and spokesperson of the area "Innovation and Transfer". Prof. Dr. Berndt Zeitler has been teaching in the Department of Building and Room Acoustics at HFT since the winter semester 2015/16. In addition to his new role as deputy to the scientific director, he is head of the Laboratory for Acoustics&Center for Building Physics (ZFB) and spokesman for the research focus "Energy-efficient buildings and sustainable urban development".
In the three-member management team, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Wolfgang Huep is involved as Vice Rector for Science and Research. He has been a professor at the HFT since 1998 and played a key role in redesigning the structure of the IAF.
The goal of the new management is the consistent further development of the research topics and projects at the IAF in order to continue its success story.
The Institute for Applied Research is the central scientific institution of the HFT. 20 years ago, Prof. Dr. habil. Ursula Eicker laid the foundation for the IAF with the Center for Sustainable Energy Technology as the first competence center at the HFT. With now 8 centers and a research spectrum ranging from sustainable urban development, integral architecture, sustainable energy technology, acoustic and thermal building physics to sustainable business and management, geodesy and geoinformatics, industrial applications of computer science and mathematics and most recently since 2019 digitalization in research, teaching and business, the HFT has made a name for itself as one of the most research-active universities among all German universities of applied sciences. With third-party funding income in the amount of €4,812,471.11 in 2018, the IAF was able to acquire more funding than ever before. With projects such as Ensource II and the continuation of the Reallabor and the major projects i_city as well as the innovation lab M4_LAB, the HFT has projects to show that explicitly take care of the role of the HFT as a knowledge carrier and the transfer into the region. In addition to teaching and research, the transfer, strengthened by the "Third Mission", hereby also moves into the focus of the HFT.
The HFT, as part of the funding initiative "Innovative University" and the forward-looking orientation of the IAF offer a groundbreaking scope for development – not only for the HFT, but also for the Stuttgart Metropolitan Region.
