Our Mission Statement

Two men and one woman in front of laptops talking.

Our Vision

As a leading entrepreneurial university, we are a site of global knowledge exchange, shaping the future with talent, excellence and responsibility.

Our Mission

We inspire, promote and develop talents in all their diversity to become responsible, broad-minded individuals and empower them to shape the progress of innovation for people, nature and society with the highest scientific standards 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 encourage 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, direct ourselves toward new challenges and improve our working methods continually. To this end, we commit ourselves to socially reflected innovations and promote their commercial application, as well as to sustainable technology spin-offs at all levels.
  • Integrity: We draw our success from an inclusive community of talents from different backgrounds, cultures, ideas and perspectives, acting 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 and cultivate the academic, economic and social partnerships that make TUM a site of global knowledge exchange.
  • Resilience: We learn from our varied experiences and see in persistent change the opportunity for the sustainable development of science, ecology, economy and society – from this we draw ever new inspiration, motivation and resolve.

Our Guiding Principles

1. Innovation for People, Nature and Society

The Technical University of Munich is committed to the progress of innovation for people, nature and society. 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, as well as the social and political sciences in order to heighten our impact on the sustainable development of society. With the aim of preserving the Earth's ecosystem, we respect the needs of the natural world, use resources conscientiously and attach the highest priority to protecting people and the environment. Out of a sense of responsibility for future generations, the latest research findings flow directly into our cooperation with schools, into the curricula of our degree programs, into continuing education and training programs, and into sustainable technology enterprises with the potential for growth.

2. Highest International Standards

The Technical University of Munich measures its scientific, structural and organizational performance according to the highest international standards and continually raises them. We enhance ourselves with international talents, form alliances with leading teaching and research institutions worldwide and cooperate with promising partner institutions. Our “Emerging Fields Policy” opens new fields in research, innovation, teaching and continuing education that hold potential for international alliances.

3. Global Mindedness and Tolerance

In keeping with the canonical values of an enlightened society, the Technical University of Munich unites its 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, we seek to foster better understanding between nations.

4. Talent with Ethical Substance

The Technical University of Munich draws its innovative strength from the diverse interests, talents and world experiences of its 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. 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 at the TUM: Junge Akademie, the TUM Graduate School, the TUM Faculty Tenure Track Academy, the TUM Institute for Advanced Study and the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning.

5. Value Creation through Diversity and Appreciation

The individual talents, manifold experiences and diversity of our TUM family members form the foundation of our mission for the future. 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 the equality of our members independent of their gender, nationality, religion, worldview, physical ability, age or sexual identity. 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.

6. Learning without Borders

The Technical University of Munich is committed to unifying top-level research with teaching excellence. In keeping with our self-conception as a leading international institution of higher education (TUM Lehrverfassung), 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. Relationships of trust between our students and faculty are marked by mutual respect for one another’s perspective 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.

7. Continuing Education – For a Lifetime

In times of accelerated change, we assume social responsibility and, as a lifelong partner in education, we strive to keep our own 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.

8. Entrepreneurial Thinking and Action

The Technical University of Munich is 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. Our entrepreneurial activities are geared consistently towards assuming a leadership role in Europe, together with our affiliated institute UnternehmerTUM, through the spin-off of growth-oriented technology start-ups from both our student body and our top-notch scientific research.

9. Cross-Generational Approach

The community of the Technical University of Munich unites the enthusiasm and intellectual curiosity of its students, the creativity and commitment of its teaching staff and employees, the wealth of ideas and radius of activity of its graduates, as well as the life experience of emeriti and alumni in a worldwide network. We prize the expertise, perspective 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.

10. Dialogue with Society and the Public

In awareness of its social, economic and cultural responsibility for our country and its citizens, the Technical University of Munich lives a culture of transparency and open dialogue with the public. It is our aim to prepare our students effectively to shape social change processes with a firm sense of responsibility. We have created the best possible conditions to this end with our expertise in teacher training and educational research, the social sciences, political science and economics. Our interdisciplinary approaches at the TUM School of Social Sciences and Technology, the Hochschule für Politik München and the TUM Institute for LifeLong Learning integrate citizens into development processes for innovation and education. We maintain intensive dialogue with industry, politics and the public – and with our alumni, as ambassadors to the world.

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Compliance

The TUM Compliance Office ensures the integrity and transparency of our university. As a central pillar of the TUM Good Governance system, it was established as part of the TUM Board of Management and operates autonomously under the Vice President for Compliance.

TUM Compliance Office

News

  • 3/1/2021
  • Reading time 3 min.

Molecular mechanisms of polar growth in plants

How a plant regulates its growth

Plants grow in two directions: the shoots of plants grow toward the light to make the best use of it, and the roots grow toward the center of the earth into the soil. A team from the Technical University of Munich (TUM), in collaboration with two research groups in Vienna, has now been able to describe in detail how the molecular mechanisms work that control these processes.

Seedlings with NPA U. Hammes / TUM
If the growth processes of plants are disturbed, the roots no longer grow to the center of the earth and flower and seed formation is massively disrupted.

Plants grow towards the light. This phenomenon, which already fascinated Charles Darwin, has been observed by everyone who owns houseplants. Thus, the plant ensures that it can make the best use of light to photosynthesize and synthesize sugars. Similarly, the roots grow into the soil to ensure that the plant is supplied with water and nutrients.

These growth processes are controlled by a hormone called "auxin", which plays a key role in the formation of polarity in plants. To do this, auxin is transported in the plant body polar, from the shoot through the plant body into the roots. In this process, a family of polar transport proteins distributes the auxin throughout the plant. To better understand this process, the research team investigated it in more detail with the help of a chemical.

How the herbicide naptalam works

Scientists around the world are studying transporter proteins in more detail due to their central role in plant development processes. Naptalam (NPA) is an important tool to elucidate the structure of the transporters.

Naptalam is the registered name of Napthylphphthalic acid. It inhibits the directional flow of auxin, thus severely inhibiting plant growth. It was used in in the European Union until 2002, and the sodium salt of naptalam is still used in the USA as a pre-emergence herbicide to control broadleaf weed in cucurbits and nursery stock.

"We wanted to know how naptalam exerts its effects," says PD Dr. Ulrich Hammes, the study's principal investigator. "Our studies show that the activity of the auxin transporters is really completely shut down by the inhibitor." When NPA binds to the transporter proteins, auxin can no longer get out of the cell, and thus the plant is no longer able to grow polarly. The roots no longer grow to the center of the earth, and flowers and seed formations are massively disrupted.

An effect of the inhibitor NPA on the activators of the transporters, known as kinases, could be ruled out through collaboration with Claus Schwechheimer, Professor of Plant Systems Biology of at the TUM, where the work was carried out. He explains, "This makes it clear that the inhibitor NPA acts directly on the transport proteins."

How transport proteins contribute to plant development

"We can now clearly explain the molecular mechanism by which polar plant growth can be disrupted pharmacologically," says Ulrich Hammes.

The research groups in Vienna were able to show that naptalam not only binds the transporters, but also prevents the transporters from binding to each other. "This mechanism of binding to each other seems to apply universally in the family of auxin transporters, as we observed the effect in all transporters studied,” says Martina Kolb, first author of the study.

Better understanding of molecular relationships

Overall, the study provides a significant step forward in understanding the mechanism of the molecular machinery of plant polarity. The new findings make it possible to study polar growth more precisely and to understand the molecular mechanism of auxin transport.

At the TUM School of Life Sciences in Weihenstephan, researchers are therefore now working further in depth to caracterize polar auxin transport processes. "We hope to be able to better understand plant growth movements through this mechanism," says Ulrich Hammes.

Publications

Lindy Abas, Martina Kolb, Johannes Stadlmann, Dorina P. Janacek, Kristina Lukic, Claus Schwechheimer, Leonid A. Sazanov, Lukas Mach, Jiří Friml, and Ulrich Z. Hammes: Naphthylphthalamic acid associates with and inhibits PIN auxin transporters. PNAS January 5, 2021 118 (1)

Further information and links

Technical University of Munich

Corporate Communications Center

Contacts to this article:

PD Dr. Ulrich Hammes
Technical University of Munich
Scientist at the Chair of Plant Systems Biology
e-Mail: ulrich.hammesspam prevention@wzw.tum.de

Prof. Dr. Claus Schwechheimer
Technical University of Munich Chair of Plant Systems Biology
Phone: +49-8161-71-2880
E-mail: claus.schwechheimerspam prevention@wzw.tum.de

 

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