The UTN was founded on January 1st, 2021 as the tenth state university in Bavaria. This is the first state university to be founded in Bavaria since 1978. On September 21st, 2023, the UTN leadership signed a university contract with the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts, represented by State Minister Markus Blume.
The UTN is a technical university under construction. The UTN university contract therefore focuses primarily on strategic goals, the achievement of which will promote the development and growth of the UTN in teaching, research, transfer, innovation and personnel development in the coming years.
The UTN university contract is based on the framework agreement of the Bavarian universities and their 10 fields of action, with the following focuses:
- Student experience, education, and further education: Establishment of master’s degree programs and a bachelor’s degree program in a central School of Students and Young Researchers; innovative learning design as well as a variety of methods in teaching; consistent interdisciplinary integration and use of the English language in teaching; digitalized student lifecycle.
- Research: Setting several research priorities through appointments; expansion of the (now newly named) Departments of Computer Science & Artificial Intelligence and Liberal Arts & Social Sciences; establishment of a research service team; initial collaborations with industry, public service institutions and other universities; establishment and increase of the acquisition of third-party funding.
- Impact on society and transfer: creation and publication of a transfer mission statement; establishment and expansion of a transfer team; establishment of initial collaborations in social and economic areas, both regionally and internationally; Development of forward-looking approaches to founding start-ups; promotion of entrepreneurial thinking at the UTN.
- University staff, promotion of early-career personnel and talented individuals: development of a career paths concept for the scientific and science-supporting areas; establishment of mechanisms for promoting talent; strategic anchoring of personnel culture and support in the executive board.
- Equality, equal opportunities, inclusion: establishment and publication of concepts for the implementation of equality, equal opportunities and inclusion at the UTN; promotion of tenure-track appointments; strategic anchoring of equality in the executive board; creation of family-friendly working environments.
- Internationalization: broad use of the German (official) language; broad use of the English language; further development of the word trademark “UTN” and the UTN brand; establishment of the attractiveness of the UTN for international talent; initial focus of internationalization on student experience and education.
- Cooperations and alliances: Initial focus on the metropolitan region of Nuremberg and the state of Bavaria in cooperations with research, art and educational institutions; cooperations with regional universities and non-university institutions; construction of corresponding networks.
- Digital transformation, digitalization in science, teaching and administration: digitalization as a guiding principle in all areas of the UTN; establishment of a digital strategy and start of its implementation in teaching, research, transfer and administration.
- Sustainability, climate protection: planning an urban and sustainable campus university; creating a sustainability concept for governance, operations, research, teaching, administration and transfer; creating an energy concept for building planning.
- Quality assurance in research, teaching and administration: setting up a digital reporting system; establishing profile-building standards for quality assurance; using an agile strategy of iterative refinement in the design and implementation of structures and processes for quality assurance and establishing internationally competitive quality in research, teaching and administration.
The AI focus of the UTN (AI) was determined after the signing of this university contract. The UTN’s goals in these fields of action are entirely consistent with this AI focus, which the UTN welcomes and whose implementation in these fields of action has already begun.
Information on the framework agreement for universities: Agility, excellence and innovation (in German) for Bavaria’s higher education landscape can be found on the website (in German) of the Bavarian State Ministry of Science and the Arts.