The newly elected rector of TU Dresden, Professor Hans Müller-Steinhagen, sketched the creed of his objectives and visions for TU Dresden when he said, "The winners of the excellence initiative will be announced in approximately two years. I shall do everything in my power to ensure that TU Dresden emerges from this competition as one of most successful universities participating in it."

Professor Hans Müller-Steinhagen was elected on June 16, 2010 as rector by the extended senate of TU Dresden for a term of five years to succeed Professor Hermann Kokenge, who has led the university since 2003.

For the past few years, Professor Müller-Steinhagen has been director of the Institute for Technical Thermodynamics at the German Aerospace Center (DLR) and professor and director of the Institute for Thermodynamics and Heat Technology (ITW) at Stuttgart University. Before then he served in leadership positions at various universities in England, New Zealand and Canada. Professor Müller-Steinhagen is a highly respected scientist and science manager.

He expects to take up his duties as rector in mid August, as soon as the required formalities have been clarified with the state of Baden-Württemberg, the DLR and the free state of Saxony.

With the application for the excellence initiative, Professor Müller-Steinhagen will be relying on the science alliance DRESDEN concept and will thus continue on the previous course because, as he puts it, “The excellence initiative is a great opportunity for TU Dresden. It will be possible to reinforce important research activities of the university by means of the additional funds that will be available when this application is successful. In the last analysis, the entire university will profit from this success.”

At the same time, Professor Müller-Steinhagen points to the university’s national and international reputation, which is closely related to the success of the excellence initiative and leads to applications from highly qualified students, scientists and professors. Prof. Müller-Steinhagen intends to lead TU Dresden into the first division internationally so that in ten years time at the latest it will have moved up in the various rankings from its present position of roughly 280 to a place among the top 100 universities in the world.

Professor Müller-Steinhagen has stressed that under his leadership TU Dresden will continue to establish itself as a full university with numerous interdisciplinary teaching and research programmes.

The new rector will also attach great importance to ensuring that all members of the TU Dresden community identify with the university’s objectives and that TU Dresden thus proves to be very attractive both as an employer and as a place to study. He intends to reshape the university's structures so that all its researchers find conditions and leeway that make it possible for them to meet with success in their work.

To achieve these objectives, Professor Müller-Steinhagen will start by selecting his own highly motivated office staff who will be asked to implement the structural changes that had already been planned by the previous rector’s office in connection with the application to the excellence initiative. This new university structure will combine elements of successful company structures with the special requirements of a full university. There will also be new structures and job descriptions in the university administration since, as the new rector has explained, "I have had very good experience with decentralising individual administrative processes because administrative, teaching and research staff get to know and respect each other better in this way and this leads to stronger involvement and motivation."

The new rector also thinks it is very important that all decision making procedures and other processes in the university be designed with the greatest possible degree of transparency.

Professor Müller-Steinhagen is not worried by the many challenges and tasks that will face him as rector; rather, he has said, "I have found out several times during my life that I have a steep learning curve. My enthusiasm for TU Dresden and, above all, the colleagues whom I have been able to meet so far give me the certainty that under my direction we will be able to work together with all the members of the TU Dresden community to exploit this university's potentials and make it one of the most attractive universities in the entire world."

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