In an interview with the German Press Agency (dpa), the Minis-ter-President of Baden-Württemberg, Winfried Kretschmann, de-mands enhanced collaboration of the state’s universities.
“Close collaboration of universities with each other is a success factor of our state. For many years now, KIT has established close strategic partnerships and strategic collaborations with other univer-sities in Baden-Württemberg,” says the President of Karlsruhe Insti-tute of Technology (KIT), Professor Holger Hanselka. “The strategic added value of the partners are both the prerequisite and the objec-tive of collaboration. The Heidelberg Karlsruhe Strategic Partnership (HeiKA) of KIT and Heidelberg University, for example, represents a strategic collaboration with the declared objective to create a re-search and development space that is unique in Germany and inter-nationally visible. Just like HeiKA, the Center for Electrochemical Energy Storage Ulm & Karlsruhe (CELEST) run in cooperation with Ulm University and the Helmholtz Institute Ulm together with Ulm University and other partners have been crucial to the success of all partners in the Excellence Strategy.” Within the framework of the Excellence Strategy, KIT acquired the Cluster of Excellence “3D Matter Made to Order” with Heidelberg University and the Cluster of Excellence “Post Lithium Storage” together with Ulm University.
At the Innovation Campus “Future Mobility” funded by the State of Baden-Württemberg with EUR 10 million, which is officially opened in Stuttgart today, KIT and the University of Stuttgart conduct re-search in the areas of additive manufacture and zero-emissions drives. “To adequately cope with the big topics and challenges of society, such as energy, mobility, and artificial intelligence, strategi-cally coordinated collaboration across institutions is of crucial im-portance,” Hanselka emphasizes. “We can only develop solutions when the strongest partners pool their complementary competen-cies. Strategic collaboration projects are of major significance to research, teaching, and innovation at KIT.” In the trinational confed-eration of EUCOR, KIT and Freiburg University closely cooperate with the universities of Basel, Strasbourg, and Mulhouse in re-search, teaching, and innovation. Collaboration of universities and further partners also is an important factor of the Baden-Württemberg Test Area for Autonomous Driving (TAF-BW) and the Karlsruhe High-performance Center for Mobility Research.
Being “The Research University in the Helmholtz Association”, KIT creates and imparts knowledge for the society and the environment. It is the objective to make significant contributions to the global challenges in the fields of energy, mobility, and information. For this, about 10,000 employees cooperate in a broad range of disciplines in natural sciences, engineering sciences, economics, and the humanities and social sciences. KIT prepares its 22,800 students for responsible tasks in society, industry, and science by offering research-based study programs. Innovation efforts at KIT build a bridge between important scientific findings and their application for the benefit of society, economic prosperity, and the preservation of our natural basis of life. KIT is one of the German universities of excellence.