The Applied Excellence Department (AED) of the Hochschulallianz Ruhr (HAR) opened its doors in Herne on September 18, 2023. The department is funded by the Ministry of Culture and Science of the State of North Rhine-Westphalia with 11 million euros.
The AED is a joint initiative of the Alliance Universities Bochum University of Applied Sciences, Fachhochschule Dortmund and Westfälische Hochschule. The department is to be developed into a joint faculty at the Herne location. The office of the Hochschulallianz Ruhr is also already located in Herne. "As the geographical center of the Ruhr region and a driver of innovative scientific formats, Herne is the ideal location for this new type of interlinking of teaching and research," says Lord Mayor Frank Dudda.
The AED sees itself as a driving force for the sustainable transformation of the Ruhr region. The aim is to develop and transfer practical, post-fossil, networked energy and mobility solutions for the Ruhr region. This also includes training the necessary specialists. To this end, the three universities with their core tasks of teaching, research and transfer will be closely linked in a new, innovative model with local authorities, companies and associations in the region in an "innovation ecosystem". The work is being carried out in line with current regional challenges in the areas of energy and mobility as well as the cross-cutting topic of digitalization.
The starting point for the current start-up phase is coordinated research projects at the three universities. The focus is on the development of old industrial areas into "sustainable future districts", which are exemplary in terms of energy supply and use as well as mobility solutions from a climate protection perspective.
The AED starts with these teams
In the future, the AED will also offer a Master's degree program jointly supported by the three Alliance universities. The new study program will act as a hinge between research and transfer and will be dynamized by changing focus topics (challenges) and different qualification lines for transfer (implementation track), research (research track) and founding (start-up track). In the various tracks, future students will be qualified for a career as a specialist and manager in companies, in applied research or as an entrepreneur.
Back in 2017, when the DeepTech innovation network ruhrvalley(Opens in a new tab) was founded, the Alliance Universities set themselves the goal of working together with companies and public institutions to develop forward-looking solutions for a post-fossil and networked society and thus contribute to the sustainable transformation of the metropolitan region.
"The Applied Excellence Department is an important contribution by the three alliance universities to the further development of the ruhrvalley network," says Andreas Wytzisk-Arens, spokesman for the steering committee of the Ruhr University Alliance.
The Ruhr University Alliance
Bochum University of Applied Sciences, Dortmund University of Applied Sciences and the Westphalian University of Applied Sciences in Gelsenkirchen, the three major universities of applied sciences in the Ruhr region, have been working for a long time in the areas of study, research and transfer under the joint umbrella of the Ruhr University Alliance in order to make even better and more systematic use of their enormous potential. The three universities have a central office in Herne to coordinate their activities.