Energy turnaround, sustainable mobility, or information society: Technology is able to provide solutions to challenges of society and improve the quality of human life. This requires partners from sciences and the industry that pool complementary skills and competencies and jointly pursue new ideas. To achieve this goal, Karlsruhe Institute of Technology (KIT) and Robert Bosch GmbH decided to enter a strategic partnership and recently signed a corresponding agreement in Karlsruhe.
“KIT contributes significantly to addressing the challenges of our society in the fields of energy, mobility, and information – our effective networking strategy, involving partners on all levels, is part of this achievement,” Professor Holger Hanselka, president of KIT, says. “I am looking forward to an even closer cooperation with an innovative partner from industry who will strategically strengthen and extend our competences as a research university in the Helmholtz Association.”
“Continuously exchanging ideas and people with a strong partner from industry will encourage research, teaching, and innovation at KIT alike,” Professor Thomas Hirth, Vice President for Innovation and International Affairs at KIT, points out. “We will now further extend our long-standing and trustful cooperation with Bosch and explore new common fields of activity.”
“We are facing enormous challenges, e.g. in the mobility sector that are caused by technical developments such as networking technologies, but also by climate change issues,” Dr. Volkmar Denner, chairman of the Bosch executive board, explains. “The development of technological solutions requires strong partnerships between the industry and the scientific community. With KIT, we have enjoyed a long-standing, trustful cooperation. By forming this partnership, we will intensify the exchange between science and practice even more. On the one hand, we promote scientific research, on the other hand, we give researchers the opportunity to apply their findings in practice. This way, we can jointly contribute to improving the quality of human life by providing technological solutions.”
The strategic cooperation agreed now constitutes the framework under which actual projects will be initiated in the future, involving further research and development activities, common teaching and information formats for students, utilization of innovative research findings, use of synergies through internationalization, and the discussion about technological developments and their impacts with the society. The close cooperation will support and strengthen the position of both partners on the national and international levels.
Bosch Group is a leading international technology and service company with a workforce of approx. 390,000 and a turnover of EUR 73.1 billion worldwide. Innovative and exciting products and services from Bosch improve the quality of human life all over the world. Bosch technology is “Invented for Life”.
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.