Plug-in Modules

This seminar provides hands-on training in prompt engineering and responsible AI management with Large Language Models (LLMs). Students learn practical prompting techniques while exploring ethical and legal implications of AI text generation. Through interactive sessions and real-world exercises, participants develop skills in effective prompting and responsible AI application. The 1.5-hour workshop is taught in English and requires completion of module SOT53404.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Academic Prompt Engineering and Management: a Reflexive Introduction
• Workshop: Academic Prompt Engineering and Management: Responsible Use in Action

What role do diversity and social inequality play in the development, use and consequences of AI? The module provides skills to analyze the relationship between AI, diversity and social inequality in different areas of society. Core topics include an analysis of the contexts in which AI is produced and the role diversity plays in these contexts; a range of application areas, such as medicine, human resources, predictive policing, social media, in which diversity plays a particular role; and issues of North-South relations and global justice in relation to AI.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In the module, students deal with the foundations and concepts of the regulation of AI as well as the assessment of the risks and opportunities of AI applications.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture:  AI Regulation & Law
• Exercise:  AI Regulation & Law

In this seminar, students develop a critical understanding of the impact of machine learning technologies and the responsibility of users in this field.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Machine Learning and Society
• Seminar: Machine Learning and Society

This course deals with the basics of societal computing. The focus is on the ethical, social, and cultural implications of data-driven, algorithmic applications. Students will explore human-centered data to uncover patterns, test theories of societal behavior, and reflect on ethical dimensions of data analysis.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This course combines theory and practice to help students learn about the potential applications of AI to become more effective leaders and team members later on. They will learn about the latest findings from academia and practice on AI in business, AI capabilities, AI bias, and AI interventions, as well as techniques for developing and implementing their own AI use.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This course focuses on content that often gets overlooked. Whether it's personal development, social skills, or financial knowledge: Participants get important information and practical tips that offer real value for their personal and professional paths.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

The course takes you on an immersive journey into the fascinating world of AI, offering a comprehensive, 360-degree view of the field. Designed to be highly interactive and hands-on, the course is centered around practical applications that have been tested in real-world scenarios.

The TUMonline link for registration will be available shortly.

Set in a future scenario, students will be confronted with scenes (based on scientific projections) that make clear what circumstances we may live in in the future. In interdisciplinary project teams, students will create a real-life practical solution for a larger societal problem they encounter in these scenarios.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In the three-month Digital Product School, students learn to build innovative digital products that solve real problems and offer users real added value.

Detailed information and registration at UnternehmerTUM

During the Global Entrepreneurship Summer School (GESS), international students from universities all over the world spend seven days intensively working in teams on global challenges and the question of how these can be solved with the help of social and innovative business ideas. GESS takes place in summer (July until September 2025) and applications will open soon. However, the respective course is part of the winter semester 2025/26, as the final report falls into the winter semester. 

Detailed information and registration at Social Entrepreneurship Akademie

In this module, students work in interdisciplinary teams to develop entrepreneurial solutions based on a self-chosen challenge with societal relevance. These solutions are also created and analyzed in terms of their impact on our social, economical and environmental systems.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In five days, students learn to develop innovative, customer-focused and impact-driven business ideas by taking on a partner's challenge in an interdisciplinary team.

Detailed information and registration at UnternehmerTUM

In this course, participants gain insights from the practice of founders and entrepreneurs, and work on their own project to improve self-leadership.

Detailed information and registration at UnternehmerTUM

In this module, comprising a lecture and an exercise, students acquire the basics of German and international business law and learn how to adequately take them into account in business and academic practice.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Introduction to Business Law
• Exercise: Introduction to Business Law

This course will challenge the next generation of leaders and entrepreneurs to think critically about how their personal values and principles inform the difficult decisions they will have to make as they grow their business.

Detailed information and registration at UnternehmerTUM

In this course, students work on industry-relevant questions of quantum computing and develop a product that they finally pitch to partners from the quantum industry.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

After completing the seminar, students will be able to choose the appropriate legal form for the establishment of a start-up, as well as to identify the appropriate financing method for the foundation. In addition, students are able to understand the essential legal regulations of intellectual property law, product labelling, data protection law and competition law.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In this course, students explore the internal and external factors that influence the scaling of companies. They will engage with key theories, frameworks, and industry insights while working in project teams to analyze, strategize, and present actionable scaling solutions for a real-world early-stage tech startup.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

Over seven weeks, participants will delve into the basics of quantum technology and explore its business applications through interactive sessions featuring industry experts and physics researchers. This foundational knowledge will also prepare them for a subsequent course they can apply for called “Quantum Entrepreneurship Laboratory”.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This course offers deep insights into the world of venture capital firms (VCs) and entrepreneurship through guest lectures, workshops, and project work. The course is designed for direct interaction with successful venture capitalists and founders, providing both theoretical knowledge and practical experience.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This module examines the impact of algorithms on fundamental rights, focusing on principles such as freedom and self-determination, equality and justice, democratic considerations and the rule of law. Students will reflect on the ethical implications and societal impact of algorithms through a variety of case studies and hypothetical scenarios.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In this module, students explore the core concepts of data ethics, responsible data practices and socially responsible data management in the context of big data, AI, and the role of digitization in society. Using real-life case studies and interactive exercises, they will work on issues of data protection, surveillance, or the ethical use of social data.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Data Ethics and Governance
• Exercise:  Data Ethics and Governance

This module focuses on the ethical issues encountered in the AI lifecycle, including the development, deployment and use of AI.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In this module, students will learn the basics of normative and applied ethics as well as responsibility in the professional field of engineering. They will develop competencies for analysing professional, social-normative, and ethical conflicts of goals using models and methods of responsible decision-making. The focus is on the sustainable implementation of responsible innovations, taking into account stakeholders, social acceptance, and ethically responsible coping strategies.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This module provides basic knowledge of inclusion and exclusion theories as well as theories of social inequality and their social and legal framework conditions. It addresses the construction of normality, deviation, and differences such as disability or gender. It examines diversity as an opportunity for justice and resource management. In addition, a successful approach to diversity and difference in social and political contexts is developed.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Social Determinants of Health and Disease 
• Lecture: Research on Inclusion and Exclusion 
• Lecture: Gender and Diversity Studies

This seminar offers a comprehensive introduction to the field of global health, with a particular emphasis on developments and health-related processes in countries of the Global South. The seminar explores the complex interconnections between health and development. Additionally, the seminar examines current trends in the global burden of disease and critically evaluates various methods used to measure disease prevalence and impact. Finally, it investigates a range of health intervention strategies at both policy and individual levels, assessing their theoretical underpinnings and the empirical evidence supporting their effectiveness.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

To grow and succeed in studies and beyond, we must be able to learn and adapt behavior, and sometimes, we need to support others in doing so. This module provides the foundation for this: strategies for self-regulated learning, theories on behavioral learning, memory, and especially motivated and self-regulated behavior. Finally, it explores how (learning) environments can be designed to promote behavior change.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Introduction to Learning and Behavior
• Lecture: Motivation and Volition

This module offers an interdisciplinary overview of global health challenges in tropical and low-resource settings, focusing on diseases like malaria, hepatitis C, HIV/AIDS, and neglected tropical diseases. It examines how cultural, geographical, and environmental factors, along with nutrition and microbiota, influence healthcare outcomes. Practical sessions equip students with essential skills to identify disease vectors and apply diagnostic tools in resource-limited contexts.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This module consists of two lectures in which the basics of sports law and media law are taught. These include association and club law, liability law in sport, legal aspects of sports contracts, marketing and advertising rights, copyright law, the right to refuse to testify, and basic personal rights, such as the right to the spoken word and the right to one’s own image. Students will also gain insights into sports and media law rulings of the Federal Constitutional Court on sports reporting in various media.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Media Law
• Lecture: Sport Law

This module examines how digital technologies, especially AI, shape the lives and identities of young people. Students interactively explore how definitions of childhood and youth, as well as coming of age, are evolving through cultural and technological shifts. Through workshops, they develop innovative research approaches to enhance children’s well-being in the digital age.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Introduction to Children, Well-Being, and Digital Technologies
• Seminar: Seminar to Children, Well-Being, and Digital Technologies
• Workshop: Children, Well-Being, and Digital Technologies

In this project, students develop and operate an Instagram channel that makes reliable nutrition-related information accessible to a wider public. The topics are based on the students’ interests and are determined during the planning phase. The posts are created in teams of 5 to 7 students, who are accompanied by a lecturer who ensures the scientific quality of the posts.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This course explores how communication shapes the relationship between politics, media, and citizens in contemporary democracies. It examines how politics is portrayed in the media, how citizens process this information, and the impact of media bias and political ideology on perceptions. Covering topics such as elections, crises, media effects, and AI, the course provides insights into the evolving dynamics of political communication in a rapidly changing world.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This seminar explores the intersections of health and development through a gender-sensitive lens and critically examines different methodologies for measuring gender (in)equality. Anchored in the objectives of Sustainable Development Goal 5—achieving gender equality and empowering all women and girls—the course addresses the following key thematic areas: (1) violence against women and girls, (2) harmful cultural practices, such as child marriage and female genital mutilation, (3) gender disparities in education and labor market participation, and (4) sexual and reproductive health and rights of women and girls. By the end of the seminar, students will be equipped to critically engage with, interpret, and evaluate influential empirical research on various dimensions of gender inequality in health and development contexts.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

The module provides an introduction to psychology. It will focus on human behavior and the central questions: Why do people act the way they do? Which role does their environment play? How can we study human behavior?

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

The module deals with food markets and the marketing of food. The focus is on the development of a communication strategy for a food product and the integration of current scientific literature from the fields of marketing and consumer behavior. The aim of the module is to familiarize students with marketing concepts and the practical implementation of marketing campaigns in the food sector.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This module examines how research can influence policy and practice, offering interactive approaches to maximize its impact. Through case studies and hands-on exercises, students develop creative formats to tailor research findings for diverse audiences. Collaboration with experts empowers them to translate research into real-world political and societal applications effectively.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This course aims at shedding light to fundamental philosophical questions concerning the relationship between AI and the human mind from a phenomenological perspective.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

The course is designed to expose students from across the TUM (especially those in the natural sciences and engineering but also students at the TUM School of Health and Medicine and the TUM School of Management) to different ways of thinking systematically about politics and public policy. Students will gain an understanding of the foundational questions of Political Science, acquire knowledge of key concepts, theories, and core methods of political analysis, and learn how to apply some of the conceptual, theoretical, and methodological tools of the social sciences to important contemporary policy questions for science, technology, economy, and democratic societies.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Politics for Rocket Scientists: An Introduction to Political Science for Non-Political Scientists
• Exercise: Politics for Rocket Scientists: An Introduction to Political Science for Non-Political Scientists

Science communication and dialog with the public is becoming increasingly important. The aim is not only to make one’s own institution and research visible but also to involve society, explain the mission of science, and ensure trust in science. Communication with the public also sharpens one’s own view of research. In this course, participants learn how to generate attention for scientific content in an increasingly complex media world and communicate it in different formats (podcasts, social media, festivals, etc.). Together with media experts, the participants will develop a new digital manual for format development. It will serve as a guide for implementing their own ideas in formats for specific target groups.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

In this module, students learn to assess the social dimensions of data infrastructures and evaluate their benefits, safety requirements, and social impact. They develop the skills to apply basic social science approaches to analyze data structure in a targeted manner to the analysis of selected cases (e.g. critical infrastructures, health), to assess societal impacts and causes respective risks, and to develop responsible solutions.

Detailed information and registrations in TUMonline

The course offers a deeper focus on psychological theories and perspectives that are integral to organizational contexts and play a key role into how work-based teams or groups form, develop and perform. Further, the seminar explores executive work-based motivational and behavioral theories that are integral to organizational processes.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This interdisciplinary module explores fundamental questions about the nature of mind and cognition through the lens of multiple fields comprising Cognitive Science (Psychology, AI, Neuroscience, Philosophy, Economics, Linguistics, and Anthropology). Each session tackles a compelling question such as “How to build a mind?” or “What makes human cognition unique?”, with insights from researchers across diverse disciplines. The course welcomes students from all academic backgrounds, offering a unique opportunity to explore the varied perspectives that make up modern cognitive science.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This seminar introduces students to the scientific study of violence, addressing both interpersonal violence (including gender-based violence and child maltreatment) and collective political violence (including state repression, civil war, and genocide). Each week features two sessions: in the first session, an overview of the topic will be provided via presentations by the lecturer; in the second session, the topic will be object of a group discussion and students will receive training on how to write an empirical research paper. By the end of the course, students will have a solid understanding of various forms of violence (including their prevalence, risk and protective factors, and social and economic consequences) and will have become familiar with academic research and writing.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Seminar 1
• Seminar 2

Are you ready to cultivate a sustainable future? Join our CampusAckerdemie at the Knosporus Campusgarden in Freising, where hands-on gardening meets transformative education for sustainable development. Experience fieldwork, inspiring theory, and collaborative projects – Wednesdays from 4:30 to 6:00 p.m.

Detailed information and registration in TUmonline

This module introduces students to the challenges and opportunities of sustainability transitions (e.g., in innovation, finance, and development) with a particular emphasis on the rate and direction of technical change and the energy sector. It focuses on the role of public policy in governing these transitions.

Detailed information and registration in TUMOnline:

• Lecture: Climate Finance
• Exercise: Climate Finance

This course offers an exploration of how Artificial Intelligence and Earth Observation technologies can be leveraged to identify and address natural catastrophes. A particular focus is placed on drought, flooding, and wildfires.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline

This module explores the history of innovation and mobility policy in the transportation sector from the 19^th century to today, focusing on industrialization, the motor age, and the green transition era. It examines how technological advancements and policy decisions in each era shaped transportation systems, societal impacts, and responses, such as the shift towards car-oriented urban planning in response to 1960s congestion, with consequences experienced up to today.

Detailed information and registration in TUMonline:

• Lecture: Innovation and Public Policy for Sustainable Mobility: A Journey through 200 Years of History
• Exercise: Innovation and Public Policy for Sustainable Mobility: Learning from Lighthouse Case Studies

At the virtual SDG Campus, students can attend a wide variety of courses related to the UN Sustainable Development Goals (SDGs) and technologies that might be helpful to reach them, collect ECTS and earn a certificate.

Detailed information on the program at the SDG Campus