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President Emeritus Wolfgang Wild

Renowned nuclear physicist Wolfgang Wild was an excellent manager and leader in the scientific community. He set the course for the later development of TUM to become a University of Excellence, and as minister of science played a defining role in shaping research and higher education in Bavaria.

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Physicist Wolfgang Wild, TUM President from 1980 until 1986, has passed away on 7 april 2023 at the age of 92. "Not only was Wolfgang Wild an outstanding researcher and teacher," says TUM President Thomas F. Hofmann. "He was also a strategically adept force in the university system and a man of wide and varied interests with a broad horizon. Continuously addressing the relationship between science and society, he was often well ahead of his time. We will remember Wolfgang Wild as a formative personality, an individual who set the course for the later development of TUM to become a University of Excellence." As TUM President and the first Bavarian minister of science, Wolfgang Wild played a defining role in shaping research and higher education in Bavaria.

Obituary on Wolfgang Wild

TUM President: 1980–86

During his six-year term as TUM President, Wolfgang Wild focused in particular on intensifying cooperation between science and industry. Starting in 1986, he was very influential in the establishment of the Walter Schottky Institute for semiconductor physics – a cooperation between Siemens AG, TUM and the Bavarian state. This central TUM institute is now a world-renowned center for nanotechnology research. Wild was actively involved in setting up a new research neutron source, which was finally opened in 2004. He also regularly contributed to the public cultural policy debate, repeatedly claiming that the time had come for a new image in the natural sciences.

“I am hopeful that the rich and varied experience I have gained in founding new universities and through my work in research and scientific planning will now benefit my own alma mater”, Wild stated when he became TUM President. Before, he had been heavily involved in the foundation of new universities (as a member of the Structural Advisory Board in Regensburg; chairman of this board in Bayreuth, functioning as a founding rector) and was a long-standing member of the German Council of Science and Humanities.

First Bavarian State Minister of Science and Arts: 1986–89

In 1986, the TUM elected him President for another four years; in the same year, Bavaria’s then Minister-President Franz-Josef Strauß asked Wild, whom he considered to be a “very good scientific manager”, to join his cabinet as Bavaria’s first dedicated minister for science. Prior to this, this department had belonged to the ministry for culture.

Wild was an active advocate for highly gifted students and campaigned against what he saw as a “trend towards mediocrity”. He improved facilities and resources at Bavaria’s overcrowded universities and strengthened research groups through initiatives designed specifically to propel them to the forefront of international research. In 1989, Wild moved to Bonn to take up the position of Director General of the German Space Agency (DARA). His main task was to develop and concept-proof a new form of managing German space exploration.

Contact

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