Industry collaborations
Bringing research findings and effective solutions to life: We collaborate with strong industry partners on campus and beyond. We also support companies with technical and methodological expertise, further training, and more.
Through cooperation with industry, we find answers to pressing social questions, whether the research is knowledge-oriented or problem-defined. Each year, we establish numerous research contracts with renowned commercial enterprises that support the university as trusted partners. These include global corporations such as Google, Siemens, Wacker Chemie, SAP, BMW, and MAN. There are various levels of cooperation with TUM: from project-based partnerships to shared infrastructure on campus.
On-site strategic cooperation: Industry on Campus
Through "Industry on Campus," we focus on fostering long-term partnerships in research, teaching, and innovation. To this end, we promote the establishment of companies on the Garching research campus, enabling students and researchers to network directly with industry experts. The following companies are part of "Industry on Campus":
GE Aerospace is a leading global supplier of engines, components, and integrated systems for the aerospace industry. It has an installed base of approximately 44,000 civil and 26,000 military aircraft engines.
GE Aerospace collaborates with TUM in the areas of aerodynamics and combustion research at the Engineering Technology Center on the Garching campus. These efforts are linked to the development of acoustic, hybrid electric, and thermodynamic technologies for a more sustainable future of flight.
More information about ITM Isotope Technologies Munich SE will be available soon.
The TUM-Oerlikon Advanced Manufacturing Institute, located on the Garching campus, is a collaboration between Oerlikon and TUM in the field of additive manufacturing technologies. A team from the Swiss technology manufacturer and university researchers are working there on innovative design and manufacturing methods, including developing custom-fit materials and investigating the printing process, process-material interaction, and the entire additive production process.
The software company SAP and TUM have a long-standing partnership, as seen in the SAP University Competence Center and the Center for Very Large Business Applications.
In 2019, as part of the Industry-on-Campus initiative, the two companies strengthened their collaboration by establishing a location on the Garching campus: the SAP Labs Munich Campus. This building houses around 700 SAP employees and 120 university researchers. There, SAP and TUM collaborate on socially relevant topics in computer science and business informatics, such as the application of artificial intelligence in business contexts, new supply chain management approaches, sustainable business management with non-financial information, quantum computing applications, and digital transformation challenges.
TUM and Siemens are strong partners in the Siemens Research and Innovation Ecosystem (Siemens RIE), a research and innovation platform. For many years, they have collaborated on innovative ideas for industry and society, focusing their joint research on the future of automation and digitalization.
With the Siemens Technology Center (STC) at the Garching site, they are expanding their partnership strategically. The building provides the infrastructure necessary for several hundred Siemens Technology researchers, as well as TUM employees and students, to conduct joint research on future digitalization topics. These topics are selected based on their scientific and economic relevance and include research fields such as simulation and digital twins, the Industrial Internet of Things (IoT), Industry 4.0, and additive manufacturing technologies.