Supported by ZF Friedrichshafen AG, a new chair is established at the RWTH Aachen University: The automotive supplier finances the endowed professorship “Automotive System Assessment” at the university’s Institute of Automotive Engineering (ika).
“The close contact to science is elementary for a company with a high research and development intensity like ZF”, says Jürgen Holeksa, Board Member Human Resources and Director of Labor Relations at ZF. Numerous employees of different ZF divisions and hierarchy levels studied at the RWTH Aachen University and received their PhD there. “Therefore, it is a logical consequence”, stresses Holeksa, “that we will extend our long-term relations with this renowned university even further – after all, in future we will also need highly qualified engineers who will develop visionary products and mobility solutions for us.”
The endowed professorship “Automotive System Assessment” takes account of the latest developments in the automotive sector: The chair is to research on how driver assistance and information systems can be optimized and integrated into modern vehicles. “Aspects like user-friendliness, interaction between driver and vehicle, road safety, and not least efficiency play an important role here”, says Dr. Harald Naunheimer, head of ZF’s Corporate Research and Development. The challenge is to integrate new functionalities into products and, at the same time, to reduce the vehicle’s complexity and simplify its operation. As a result, the user should be able to use the numerous offered functions by intuition.
“Even more than in the past, future functions in the vehicle will be evaluated not only with regard to their technological progress but also their efficiency and acceptance”, says professor Lutz Eckstein, head of the ika. “We appreciate that the interdisciplinary automotive research is sustainably supported with the professorship “Automotive System Assessment” endowed by ZF.” Dr. Maximilian Schwalm, who holds a doctorate in psychology, was appointed to the chair; during his work for BMW AG in Munich, he was able to gain diversified experience in the area of user research and operating concepts. Core task of the chair is furthermore to closely cooperate with the industry and other scientific research projects.
The funding initiated now at the RWTH Aachen University is earmarked for six years. So far, ZF finances several chairs at universities in Germany and since November 2012 also a professorship at a foreign university: At the Chinese-German College (CDHK) of the renowned Tongji University in Shanghai, the company finances the endowed chair of Passenger Car Chassis Technology and Dynamics.
