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

  • 10/2/2017

Tracking live brain activity with the new NeuBtracker open-source microscope

Zebrafish live and in colour

A team of scientists from the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the Technical University of Munich (TUM) has successfully developed a new type of microscope. The so-called NeuB<i>tracker</i> is an open source microscope that allows to observe neuronal activities of zebrafish without perturbing their behavior. This is opening up completely new perspectives for science, because now it will be possible to track natural behavior while simultaneously imaging neuronal activity in the brain.

The new open-source microscope NeuBtracker makes it possible to observe neuronal activity during unrestrained behavior of zebrafish. (Image: A. Lauri / TUM)
The new open-source microscope NeuBtracker makes it possible to observe neuronal activity during unrestrained behavior of zebrafish. (Image: A. Lauri / TUM)

NeuBtracker is equipped with two cameras: One tracks the unrestrained behavior of the zebrafish larva while the other automatically remains pointed at the transparent head, and consequently the brain, to record fluorescence images. “This approach makes it possible to observe neuronal activity during unrestrained behavior. We can test the larvae in different environmental conditions and can immediately analyze the effects,” says Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer from the Institutes of Biological and Medical Imaging (IBMI) and Developmental Genetics (IDG) at the Helmholtz Zentrum München as well as the Department of Nuclear Medicine and Munich School of Bioengineering (MSB) at the Technical University of Munich (TUM).


For example, by adding substances that influence metabolism, it is possible to observe resulting neuronal events in the brain in vivo. “Now we can finally simultaneously observe the effects of physiologically active substances on the behavior and brain activity,” states Panagiotis Symvoulidis from the TUM and the Helmholtz Zentrum München and the study’s first author. “The selective expression of fluorescent sensor proteins allows us to detect the activity of particular neurons.” “Consequently we can see exactly which areas in the brain are active during specific behaviors,” adds Dr. Antonella Lauri from Westmeyer’s team.

A microscope that anyone can build

The new instrument is a so-called open-source microscope. This means that instructions on how to build the microscope are available to everyone on the web (www.neubtracker.org). “We wanted to give our scientific colleagues the possibility to build their own NeuBtracker because we had been waiting for such a device for years,” Westmeyer explains. “It is finally possible to see the effects of pharmacological substances on the behavior and the neuronal activity - or other cellular signal processing events - at the same time and across an entire organism. This systemic approach enables us to make new discoveries and we will for example seek to use this device in drug discovery and metabolic research,” Westmeyer adds.


The Helmholtz "Imaging and Curing Environmental Metabolic Diseases" Alliance (ICEMED) and the ERC Starting Grant to Gil Westmeyer supported the interdisciplinary project, in which also the TUM Institute of Neuroscience and the Chair for Computer Aided Medical Procedures & Augmented Reality, as well as the Munich School of Bioengineering (MSB) of TUM participated.

Original publication

P. Symvoulidis, A. Lauri, A. Stefanoiu, M. Cappetta, S. Schneider, H. Jia, A. Stelzl, M. Koch, C. Cruz Perez, A. Myklatun, S. Renninger, A. Chmyrov, T. Lasser, W. Wurst, V. Ntziachristos and G. G Westmeyer, NeuBtracker – imaging neurobehavioral dynamics in freely bahaving fish, Nature Methods, October 2017, DOI: 10.1038/NMETH.4459

Kontakt

Prof. Dr. Gil Westmeyer
Professor for Molecular Imaging
Technical University of Munich
Phone: +49 (0) 89 3187-2123
gil.westmeyerspam prevention@tum.de

Further Information

Technical University of Munich

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