With an innovative concept for international, strategically-oriented excellence scouting, TU Dresden has now been accepted in the Alexander von Humboldt Foundation's new Henriette Herz Scouting Program. The "SCAFFOLDING" pilot project supports the "Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences in attracting and recruiting highly qualified, international, early-career researchers. It is carried out in cooperation with the Chair of Network Dynamics at the Center for Advancing Electronics Dresden (cfaed) and is endowed with a total of 125,000 EUR. The two-year project will start in January 2021 and will be jointly led by Prof. Regine Gerike from the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences and Prof. Marc Timme (cfaed and Institute for Theoretical Physics).

"This award by the renowned Humboldt Foundation is a resounding success for TU Dresden in its entirety," rejoices Ursula M. Staudinger, Rector of TU Dresden. "In order to offer excellent teaching and research, we need the best national and international early-career researchers. With the Henriette Herz Prize, we can now bundle internal and external expertise even better in order to recruit the brightest minds worldwide".

For the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences, the Henriette Herz Scouting Program comes at the right time in that eight professorships in conjunction with at least ten postdoctoral positions at the faculty will be filled over the course of the next five years.  "The admission of TU Dresden to the Henriette Herz-Scouting program is the main prize for us," says project manager Regine Gerike, pleased with the success. "Our research topics of traffic and mobility can only be considered in a global context," adds Gerike, who is also Vice Dean of Research at the Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences.

Topics such as digitized, automated and networked as well as greenhouse gas neutral, shared and multimodal mobility are of high societal relevance and can only be effective through international exchange.  For this reason, the recruitment of international scientists is a focal point of the new faculty strategy, in order to broaden the faculty's position and network. In particular, the emerging field of "networked and automated mobility" is to be promoted. 

The knowledge and experience gained from the pilot project for finding and retaining international leaders in science and research will later be transferred to other areas and faculties of TU Dresden. Prof. Marc Timme adds: "We want to attract internationally and interdisciplinarily active research personalities and at the same time strengthen an interdisciplinary research area in an exemplary manner.  The cfaed can contribute many years of experience in this field and also offers professional connections, e.g. to issues of systemic dynamics of networked autonomous mobility". 

The SCAFFOLDING concept

„TUD High Potential Tracers“ supports the Faculty of Transport Sciences in “tracing” promising, international talent.

• The TUD-specific “TUD Scouting Advanced Training Program” pools existing expertise in international recruitment of early-career researchers.
• A joint platform of TU Dresden and the extramural institutions of DRESDEN-concept (DDc) offers orientation, food for thought and feedback to the stakeholders.
• Once a year, international, early-career researchers are invited to a two-day "Rising Stars Workshop" in Dresden. 

Media inquiries
Anke Richter-Baxendale, PR
"Friedrich List" Faculty of Transport and Traffic Sciences
TU Dresden
Tel: +49 351 463-34908
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