Our Mission Statement
Our Vision
As a leading entrepreneurial university, we are a site of global knowledge exchange, shaping a sustainable future through talent, excellence and responsibility.
Our Mission
We inspire, promote and develop talents in all their diversity to become responsible, broad-minded individuals. We empower them to shape the progress of innovation for people, nature, and society with scientific excellence and technological expertise, with entrepreneurial courage and sensitivity to social and political issues, as well as a lifelong commitment to learning.
Our Core Values
Our core values form the foundation of our relationships with one another and with our cooperation partners:
- Excellence: We cultivate an environment of curiosity, creativity and unconventional thinking across the disciplines and set the highest standards of performance in research, teaching, and innovation.
- Entrepreneurial Mindset: We question the consequences of our actions, take on new challenges proactively, and continually enhance our working methods. We commit ourselves to socially reflected innovations and promote their commercial application by founding sustainable technology spin-offs.
- Integrity: We draw our success from an inclusive community of talents from different backgrounds, cultures, ideas and perspectives. We act with respect for others and transparency in accordance with our shared values.
- Collegiality: We respect and inspire one another in a vibrant culture of university community. We cultivate the academic, economic and social partnerships that make TUM a site of global knowledge exchange.
- Sustainability and Resilience: We learn from our diverse experiences and see in persistent change the opportunity for the sustainable development of science, ecology, economy and society – from this we draw inspiration, motivation and resolve.
Our Guiding Principles
We are committed to progress for the sustainable transformation of our society so that future generations can enjoy health and prosperity in harmony with nature and the environment. With pioneering spirit, creativity and a sense of responsibility, we combine our diverse competencies in the engineering and natural sciences and medicine with those of business, the humanities, and the social sciences in order to heighten our impact on the sustainable development of society. We empower our TUM family of students, employees, researchers, teachers, founders, alumni and partners to develop innovative solutions for a sustainable future and to fulfill our social responsibility as leaders in shaping sustainable and resilient societies. Out of a sense of responsibility for future generations, the latest research findings flow directly into our cooperation with schools, into our degree programs, into continuing education and training programs, and into sustainable technology enterprises with the potential for growth.
We measure our scientific, structural and organizational performance according to the highest international standards and continually raise them. We enhance ourselves with international talents, form alliances with leading teaching and research institutions worldwide, e. g. through the EuroTech Universities Alliance, our Flagship partnerships and TUM Asia, and cooperate with promising partner institutions in research, innovation, teaching and continuing learning.
In keeping with the canonical values of an enlightened society, we unite our globally oriented network with respect for the self-understanding of people from all cultures and regions of the world. With our international presence and partnerships, as well as international student cohorts on all our campuses, we foster inclusion in Germany and promote understanding among nations in an international environment.
We draw our innovative strength from the diverse interests, talents and world experiences of our students, employees, alumni, and the numerous individuals who broaden the horizon of our activities as cooperation partners, patrons, sponsors and supporters. We support our talents in recognizing their individual potential for professional development and bringing it to fruition. It is our aim to develop professional expertise and the ability to judge, to promote an understanding of other disciplines and teamwork, as well as a strong sense of responsibility in finding solutions to growing challenges and seizing new opportunities. Cognitive agility, cultural sensitivity, global-mindedness and social competence are as important to us as professional mastery and entrepreneurial courage. We effectively promote talents at all career levels with our school programs, our extensive range of degree programs, the TUM: Jungen Akademie, our TUM Student Clubs, the TUM Graduate School, the TUM Faculty Tenure Track Academy, the TUM Institute for Advanced Study and the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning.
The individual talents, manifold experiences and diversity of our TUM family members are the key to fulfilling our mission. Our university community thrives on mutual respect, an open-minded culture, the free exchange of opinions, ideas and experiences, and reciprocal appreciation. We actively promote equality of talent, regardless of gender, nationality, religion, ideology, physical ability, age, sexual identity and socio-economic background. As a family-friendly university, we invest in the compatibility of family, studies and career. We promote the social and professional competence, flexibility, communication and team competencies of our TUM family members. We are committed to a transparent, motivating and cooperative management style that creates space for participatory involvement and cultivates open communication both within the university and beyond.
Our self-conception as a leading international institution of higher education is founded on the fusion of top-level research with teaching excellence (TUM Teaching Constitution). We offer our students future-oriented higher education with disciplinary depth, while fostering their creativity, drive and individual talents. Our cross-disciplinary approach to education expands their radius of thought and action and shapes their characters to become citizens of the world with a keen sense of social and political responsibility. To this end, we continually enhance our didactic approaches and employ complementary teaching formats, including classroom instruction, as well as state-of-the-art digital and interactive tools. We offer our students an abundance of opportunities to gain experience and experiment beyond the scope of their degree programs in order to develop their individual talents, grow as individuals in interdisciplinary teams and assume responsibility. Relationships of trust between our students and faculty are marked by mutual respect for one another’s perspectives and needs. Our cultural, artistic and sports activities foster holistic education and training to broaden the intellectual horizons of our students and staff and to encourage them to think in new ways.
In times of accelerated change, we assume social responsibility and, as a lifelong partner in education, we strive to keep our employees, our faculty and alumni, as well as professionals and leaders in industry, politics and society, at the forefront of the latest developments with on-going, research-based continuing education programs offered by the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning.
We are dedicated to the principle of competitive achievement. We contribute the results of basic and applied research to market-oriented innovation processes and promote an “entrepreneurial spirit” in all areas of the university. We encourage our members to found sustainable, growth-oriented and technologically driven enterprises and support them throughout the process from idea to solid market position. With the TUM Venture Labs together with our affiliated institute UnternehmerTUM, we strive to play a leading role in Europe in the spin-off of growth-oriented technology start-ups from both our student body and our top-notch scientific research.
Our university community unites the enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity of our students, the creativity and commitment of our teaching staff and employees, the wealth of ideas and radius of activity of our graduates, as well as the life experience of emeriti and alumni in a worldwide network. We prize the expertise, perspectives and commitment of our TUM Senior Excellence Faculty, as well as their active contribution to university development as invaluable advisors. In a cross-generational approach, the members of our university community shape progress in research, innovation and teaching.
In awareness of our social, economic and cultural responsibility for our country and its citizens, we live a culture of transparency and open dialogue with the public. To this end, we inform the public through a variety of channels and seek intensive dialogue with industry, politics and the public, as well as with our alumni as ambassadors to the world. We empower our students to responsibly shape the processes of social change and create value for society. With our expertise in teacher training and educational research, in the social and economic sciences, we create the best possible conditions for effective public policy advising, lasting relationships with schools and dialogue with industry leaders. Our interdisciplinary approaches at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, the Munich School of Politics and Public Policy at TUM, the TUM Think Tank and the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning integrate citizens into development processes for innovation and education.