TU Hamburg awards first honorary doctorate in nine years

Prof. Horst Wildemann of TU Munich honored with ceremonial colloquium

14.07.2023

Groundbreaking work in the field of logistics, great services to young scientists and exceptional achievements in the transfer of scientific knowledge into practice: For these achievements, Prof. Horst Wildemann was awarded the academic degree "Doctor of Economic and Social Sciences Honorary" (Dr. rer. pol. h. c.) of the Hamburg University of Technology on Friday. At a ceremonial colloquium in the Audimax, TU President Andreas Timm-Giel, Vice President Teaching Wolfgang Kersten, as well as BMW CEO Oliver Zipse, BioNTech COO Sierk Poetting and GEA Group CEO Stefan Klebert spoke alongside the honoree himself. With this new honor, TU Hamburg has so far awarded a total of eight honorary doctorates, the previous time in 2014 to Prof. Thomas J. C. Matzen. Titles of this kind are awarded by universities for special achievements in science and transfer, sometimes also to non-academic individuals.

Wildemann studied mechanical engineering and business administration in Aachen and Cologne. After working in the automotive industry for several years, he received his doctorate in 1974 and has been a full professor of business administration since 1980. In addition to his teaching activities, Wildemann heads a consulting institute for corporate planning and logistics with over 60 employees. He is active as a consultant, supervisory board member and advisory board member for leading industrial companies. In addition to the Technical University of Munich, Wildemann also teaches at the Universities of Cologne, Bayreuth, Passau and Stuttgart-Hohenheim as well as the International Management Institute in Brussels and the University of Southern California, Los Angeles, and the University of Indianapolis in the USA.

Prof. Andreas Timm-Giel, President of TU Hamburg: "We are pleased to be able to award this outstanding scientist with an honorary doctorate for his great life's work. Over the past 25 years, he has repeatedly cooperated with Hamburg University of Technology in research projects - most recently on the industrialization of 3D printing - and has also made important contributions to the development of TUHH beyond that."

Prof. Wolfgang Kersten, Vice President of Teaching at TU Hamburg: "Prof. Wildemann is certainly one of the best-known scientists in the field of business administration in Germany. In particular, he is one of the founders of the scientific discipline of logistics, which is so important for Hamburg. In addition, he has succeeded in an exemplary manner in putting scientific findings into practice, particularly on just-in-time logistics and efficiency-enhancing process innovations, thus contributing to the competitiveness of Germany as an industrial location."

TUHH - Public Relations Office
Kaja Weber
E-Mail: kaja.weber@tuhh.de