Teaching and researching at the same time – for a long time, this was only possible for university professors. Since 2019, the Free State of Bavaria has funded research professorships at (technical) universities of applied sciences. THWS uses this opportunity to establish practice-oriented and quality-assured research.
Jan Schmitt worked as product manager in the engineering department of Vorwerk Elektrowerke when he coincidentally saw a job advertisement in the newspaper – namely for a research professorship of process management in digital production at the Technical University of Applied Sciences Würzburg-Schweinfurt. "Then I first had to look up what a research professorship was", Schmitt says. "But this was lastly the decisive factor why I accepted this professorship. I would not have thought that I would become a professor this young, but this has always been my dream: research and teaching."
State increasingly funding research at higher education institutions
When Schmitt started at the University in September 2018, he was 35, and also one of the first research professors. This means: Of the 18 weekly semester hours he has to complete at THWS, he uses one half for teaching and the other half for research. A new model that is made possible, among others, by the Hightech Agenda Bavaria. Previously, all professors at universities of applied sciences were employed solely in teaching. Research was mostly conducted at universities, with exceptions like research semesters.
"But they have come to realise that applied research is vital and that universities of applied sciences can provide this excellently", explains Professor Dr. Jürgen Hartmann, then THWS Vice President for Research. His tasks are diverse: he wants to promote research at THWS, facilitate his colleagues' entering research, optimise framework conditions for research, support company foundations, give impulses for research and develop a research vision for THWS.
Hartmann explains that one of the goals behind the State funding of research professorships was to make German companies fit for the future so that they were still competitive on the increasingly contested world markets, and to ensure the strong position of "Made in Germany". "So, it also is about making our research excellence accessible to small and medium-sized companies who do not have their own research departments", Hartmann says. In the end, the research funds ought to contribute to increasing the productivity of the German economy and thus the gross national product.
Practice-oriented research with defined goals
At THWS, the research focuses lie on "human and mobility", "digital and intelligent systems", and "energy and energy technology". Currently, THWS has about one hundred ongoing research projects. These are characterised in particular by their strong practice-orientation, Hartmann says: "Our University is rooted in the region, and is well connected. Thus, the companies have no problems to cooperate with us which is why we can conduct practice-oriented research really well."
For example, THWS collaborates with the company Knauf to create a recycling process for plaster. With AOK, THWS develops programmes for greater stress resilience for students. In cooperation with Airbus, the University researches an AI-supported process to examine planes by using drones. A few flagship projects have already been created at THWS, among them the High Voltage Lab in Schweinfurt, the largest lab at a German technical university of applied sciences. "This changes the identity of a higher education institution", Hartmann says. "In some sub-areas we are so confident and high-performing that we can compete with universities."
Research professor Schmitt deals with topics of Industry 4.0 in combination with automation, machine learning, data engineering and sustainability. He says: "It is more than a challenge to find the right balance between research and teaching." For him, there would not be either teaching or research, only both, hand in hand. One benefitted the other. Hartmann sees this in a similar way: "Our main task is to prepare students for academic and also practical work. But for this, we need the possibility of being at the top regarding research. However, there must not be the impression that research is the cherry on the cake while teaching is merely a chore."
Thus, research professors must sign target agreements and account for their research work. This mechanism is supposed to ensure research quality – on this Hartmann and Schmitt agree. Possible objectives include a certain number of scientific publications, the acquisition of third-party funds or cooperations with companies. "The objectives are well-balanced: obtainable while at the same time not too easy", Schmitt thinks. Every semester, he has to submit a report on his defined goals, after five years, there is an evaluation upon which the decision is based whether the research professorship is continued, or whether the teaching load is increased.
Research professorships add to THWS's attractiveness
Schmitt is planning to take one step. He definitely wants to maintain his research professorship to continue pushing his projects and intensifying his research – continuing to research and teach. "More exciting to me is research because you have so many projects" he says. "But teaching on the other hand, is also very interesting because each year you engage with different people and characters." In the end, the mixture was what mattered.
It was his dream job which would, however, still require a lot of intrinsic motivation. A research professorship at a technical university of applied sciences meant creating many structures from scratch. But this also offered a large potential: "The structures at universities are more inflexible and, due to its small size, THWS has the chance to be a lot more agile". Schmitt's wish for the next years would be to establish an administrative super-structure to make for more efficient research structures. Hartmann wishes to recruit even more research professors in future. "We have 26 positions with 100 percent research. This means we could hire up to 52 colleagues who combine research and teaching with 50 percent each." At the end of 2022, there were ten research professorships at THWS.
For Hartmann, the research professorships are an indicator of quality in several ways: On the one hand, THWS was becoming more attractive to young professors that increasingly wanted to conduct research in addition to their teaching. On the other hand, this new work model offered the chance to introduce young people to research, to provide them with a better education and to increase their motivation to choose THWS as their higher education institution. The bottom line for Hartmann: "The research professorships increase our chances to compete with other higher education institutions, and to achieve the best we can for the region."
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"Research professorships at THWS"
(podcast in German; English transcript available)