The further development of FAU encompasses culture, strategy, and structure. In doing so, the university follows the paradigm of “structure follows strategy.” The structure must support and promote future development: from a culture of enablement to a structure of enablement.
Strategic data
- FAU generates a wide variety of data relating to students, staff, and finances. Once processed and analyzed, this data forms the basis for decisions, forecasts, trend analyses, and calculation models.
Our governance aims to ensure a balanced approach to the interplay between autonomy, responsibility, and accountability. This can only succeed if responsibilities are clearly defined and communication channels are proactively and precisely structured. As an innovation-driven comprehensive university and a broad platform for networking, we intend to benefit significantly from the greater freedoms emerging within Bavaria’s higher education landscape. Conscious of our responsibilities, we see ourselves as a bridge between science, business, politics, and society. We aim to foster a culture of collaboration—both internally and externally—characterized by freedom, independence, and personal responsibility, and to establish structures that support the realization of our goals. Our approach encourages both individual and collective accountability across FAU. Shaping innovation requires us to provide spaces that allow for experimentation with new and alternative ways of researching, teaching, working, and learning.
For FAU, organizational development refers equally to the design and further development of internal and cross-institutional structures and processes in science and science-supporting systems. Areas of FAU organizational development: Internal FAU structures and processes.
Organizational Forms in Science:
- Within faculties/departments
- In central facilities
- In large & strategic projects
Organizational Forms in the Science Support System:
- In central & decentralized units
- Through interaction between these units
- In collaboration with researchers
Organizational Networks Emerging from Science:
- In strategic partnerships
- In alliances and consortiums
- Within the innovation ecosystem
Organizational Networks Emerging from the Science Support System:
- With subsidiaries
- With partner organizations
- With government and policy bodies
FAU focuses on developing a secure, reliable, and ubiquitous technical and IT infrastructure, enabling smooth operation and use by departments, faculty, students, and external partners. With the Regional Computing Center Erlangen (RRZE) and the 2021-established National High-Performance Computing Center Erlangen (NHR@FAU), FAU has highly competent on-site IT services covering three key levels of IT infrastructure—basic digital services, department-specific, and research-specific needs—while ensuring system-wide IT security.
In the future, RRZE is planned to expand into a “Northern Computing Center,” providing IT support for research, administration, and the wider region. Other aspects of FAU’s extensive infrastructure are managed by the technical and commercial facilities management.
Technical services consistently use Computer-Aided Facility Management (CAFM) tools to maintain, operate, and upgrade complex technical systems, with the CAFM database FAMOS forming the infrastructural backbone. This is complemented by business process analyses within the MOVE@FAU organizational development project. Commercial facilities management applies tailored instruments to ensure economically and ecologically sustainable operations.
Our campus is deeply intertwined with the urban communities and the wider region, encompassing, in a broad understanding of campus, the entire space of interaction of FAU. Campus development here focuses on the evolution of buildings and mobility infrastructure, complementing the development of technical infrastructure described elsewhere. We are aware, however, that a single “campus” does not exist and cannot exist: as a university in a metropolitan region, FAU is spread across multiple cities. Nevertheless, we are convinced that a cohesive identity can be created.
To achieve this, we assess the current state, present our vision, and outline the path to realize it. Our sustainability concept provides the guiding principles. We will address mobility between the sites in the metropolitan region and develop a corresponding mobility concept, taking into account external infrastructure projects, in particular the Stadt-Umland-Bahn (StUB) connecting Nuremberg and Erlangen.
We understand campus development as an ongoing process and aim to actively involve all regional partners, cultural institutions, companies, municipalities, civil society, as well as students and staff. This will be supported through appropriate internal and external communication channels, including the website and social media. Communicating construction timelines and phases clearly is an essential part of our responsibility.
What impact do we aim to achieve internally and externally? We want to understand the interplay between organization, space, and digital infrastructure, while taking into account changing conditions. We will consider the effects of the “COVID-19 impact” on the (further) development of new work environments for researchers and research-supporting staff, and reflect these insights on learning environments for students.
Campus development will also shape organizational structures: processes, communication and collaboration, culture, and social aspects are directly affected by campus development and the interventions it requires.