THE PATRON
Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Hofmann
Born in 1968, Prof. Dr. Thomas F. Hofmann studied food chemistry at the University of Erlangen-Nuremberg and received his doctorate (1995) and habilitation (1998) at the Technical University of Munich. In 1998 he was appointed Deputy Director of the German Research Institute for Food Chemistry, a member of the Leibniz Association. Prof. Hofmann followed a call from the University of Münster as Professor and Director of the Institute of Food Chemistry (2002) and returned to TUM in 2007 as Full Professor of the newly founded Chair of Food Chemistry and Molecular Sensor Technology. From 2009 to 2019, he was Vice President for Research and Innovation, and since 2019 he has been President of TUM.
RECOGNITION
In 2017, Chairman Simon Dietlmeier was nominated by the Technical University of Munich and the Free State of Bavaria to attend the National Reunification Celebrations in Mainz. Being an official representative of the Bavarian citizens in his role as Chairman of the TUM Speakers Series, Simon had the opportunity to meet Germany`s political leaders and to represent our initiative on the highest political levels of Germany.
Meetings included encounters with the Federal President of Germany, Dr. Frank-Walter Steinmeier; the President of the Bundestag, Dr. Norbert Lammert; as well as the incumbent President of the German Bundesrat, Malu Dreyer. The Bavarian delegation was headed by Vice Minister-President Joachim Herrmann, and German Federal Minister Christian Schmidt, supported by Beatrix Dietl of the Protocol in the Bavarian State Chancellery. Two TUM student senators were also part of the delegation.
THE TECHNICAL UNIVERSITY OF MUNICH
With now 38,500 students and 13 Nobel Prizes, TUM is in the top group of all German universities and among the top 5 technical universities in Europe. This is regularly evidenced by the international university rankings, the awards at EU level as well as by the statistics on the research funds raised. In Europe, only Cambridge and Oxford surpass the quality of TUM graduates, say employers from 20 countries worldwide according to the "Global Employability University Ranking" 2015.
King Ludwig II founded the "Royal Bavarian Polytechnic School of Munich" in 1868. Today, the Technical University of Munich (TUM) is one of the most research-oriented technical universities in Europe - with a broad spectrum of subjects that is unique in Germany: engineering and natural sciences, life sciences and medicine, economics and education.
Since 1990 about 700 companies have been spun off from TUM. TUM is an international university with a high proportion of foreign students and scientists and more than 150 partner universities around the globe. In 2012, TUM Asia in Singapore became the first German university to establish a campus abroad. It also has offices in Brussels, Cairo, Mumbai, Beijing, San Francisco and São Paulo. Due to its innovations and dynamism, TUM was awarded the title of Excellence University in 2006 and 2012.