Project Houses
RWTH Aachen University aims at pioneering emerging research areas of global and societal relevance. Most of these research areas are of an interdisciplinary nature. For this reason, it is essential for RWTH to support its researchers in identifying, establishing, promoting, and eventually maintaining research areas in interdisciplinary growth areas from the initial exploration of new ideas to the creation of research centers.
These measures promote a closer integration of and collaboration between the different disciplines, such as Engineering, Natural Sciences, Arts and Humanities, Business and Economics, and Medicine, towards an "Integrated Interdisciplinary University of Technology". To achieve these goals, a structured strategic process has been established.
Addressing Interdisciplinary Research Questions
The RWTH Project Houses place special emphasis on interdisciplinary research. Scientists and mathematicians are teaming up with economists and academics from the humanities to tackle research issues that have immense scientific and social significance. How can we responsibly meet our energy needs in the future? What will life in our cities be like ten years from now? How does modern mobile phone technology affect human interaction?
HumTec Project House
HumTec is an interdisciplinary Project House at RWTH Aachen University funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. HumTec aims at fostering high level interdisciplinary research between the humanities/social sciences and the engineering/natural sciences.
HumTec is part of the RWTH Institutional Strategy, which is funded by the Excellence Initiative of the German federal and state governments. The new institutional strategy comprises four distinct measures, including the strengthening of interdisciplinary collaboration.
Following this strategy, HumTec provides a framework for top-level interdisciplinary research. At HumTec, social scientists as well as engineers, natural scientists and physicists work together in interdisciplinary teams on the major societal challenges of our time.
IMF Project House
The goal of the newly create "Interdisciplinary Management Factory" (IMF) project house is to support the transformation of the School of Business and Economics into an internationally competitive institution for interdisciplinary, technology-oriented research.
The IMF is expanding on the success of the IMP project house from the first phase of the Excellence Initiative. This included the faculty's research program within the Institutional Strategy I.
Virtual Project House for Gender and Diversity in SET (Science, Engineering, Technology)
In order successfully to address the global challenges of our time, RWTH has set itself the goal to develop into a truly integrated interdisciplinary University of Technology. In order to continue to be competitive in the future, RWTH seeks to tap and develop the potential of a community of culturally and otherwise diverse people.
Researchers from different disciplines at have commited themselves to integrate gender and diversity perspectives in their research, applied methodologies, teaching, and scientific outlook and to consider this integration of perspectives as an important cross-sectional task.
The Virtual Project House aims at interconnecting scientists and their research areas, promote interdisciplinary collaboration between them, and thus to make their work more visible to the research community.
XN Ray Central Office
Synchrotron X-ray and neutron radiation play a fundamental role in modern structure analysis as probes for the non-destructive investigation of materials. These investigation methods can be applied to a broad range of research fields, such as materials sciences, physics, chemistry, biology, medicine, earth sciences, archeology, and history of art. Apart from fundamental research, experimental methods are more and more being devised for investigations in the field of technical applications.
Further Information: XN Ray Central Office
StreetScooter.Boost: Virtual Project House for Electric Mobility
The Virtual Project House for Electric Mobility and the Agency for Electric Mobility (GSE) are contact partners at RWTH Aachen in the interdisciplinary field of electric mobility. The most diverse questions about this important field of research are being investigated at over 30 different research insitutes at RWTH Aachen. The GSE provides partners from politics and the industry and all coopartion partners with central access to the expertise at RWTH Aachen in the field of electric mobility.
Center of Molecular Transformations (CMT)
The CMT orginated from the interdisciplinary growth area "Molecular Science and Engineering"; the primary goals of this newly established project house include developing sustainable methods and processes for molecular transformation and making a contribution to the preparation of alternative carbon sources (biomasses, CO2). Therefore, the project house works in the field of catalysis research, under the integration of approaches and methods from chemo-catalysis, bio-catalysis, and process engineering.