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Strengthened Positioning of Scientific Theses
Theses from undergraduate, graduate and doctoral
students are essential parts of the scientific output of the
department. Protection of scientific property and quality
control prompted the department to enforce the following
rules:
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Companies, not the candidates themselves, may
propose topics for an external thesis jointly with an
academic lecturer at the department.
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As a thesis is part of an examination process the
department cannot accept access restrictions to thesis
content.
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It is expected that theses are or will be published as
scientific papers. The MediaTUM platform provides a
good support environment for this purpose.
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Doctoral candidates without a full contract as a scien
tific assistent are expected to immerse themselves
into the research and educational environment at the
department for at least 20% of regular working hours.
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The department has licenses a plagiarism check
software program.
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The department has implemented a compulsory semi-
nar on good scientific practice for doctoral candidates,
as suggested by the standard curriculum developed for
the DFG.
To our current knowledge, only few other departments in
Germany have implemented similar measures.
Targeted Support for DFG-funded Projects
DFG funding is more competitive than funding through
research contracts, but offers more room for scientific
creativity. Success in DFG funding lines, especially SFs, is
regarded as a key indicator for research strength. Activi-
ties for promoting DFG activities are two-fold:
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Whenever third-party funding is used as a parameter
for budgeting measures, DFG funding enters with a
factor of two as compared to other non-public funding
lines. Other public funding lines (e.g. European Com-
mission or Federal/State Ministries) are counted with a
factor of 1,5.
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Parallel to support by the university, coordination of
SFB is directly supported by the Dean through increas-
ing the personnel budget of the respective unit by an
additional research assistant position.
Through these measures, the Department of Mechanical
Engineering is currently the second most important
department at TUM with respect to total DFG funding.
International Profile
Over recent years international visibility of the Department
of Mechanical Engineering has grown significantly as a
consequence of the evaluation in 2011:
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Since 2011, out of the 13 newly appointed professors,
four have an exclusively international background and
three more very significant international experience in
non-German speaking countries. In total, more than
half of the current faculty have significant international
experience.
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25% of all students are international, not including
exchange students such as Erasmus students. This
compares to 13% in 2011.
Appointment Process
The department evaluation pointed out the need for a
mid- and long-term appointment strategy utilizing the full
range of appointment schemes at TUM. The department
pursues a three-time-level strategy for structuring its
appointment processes, extending from the near future to
a time horizon of 12 years into the future. The three-level
strategy enables the different time-ranges of tenure-track
and tenured appointments to be intertwined. Appoint-
ments are derived from the long-term research and
teaching positioning strategy of the department.
Governance