RESEARCH GROUPS

The research group "Advanced Robotics" at IU focuses on two research areas of modern robotics with the aim of opening up robotics applications for difficult but at the same time very important areas such as care.

The first area consists of research into innovative actuator and sensor technologies that will enable the construction and operation of so-called soft robots. Due to their special design, soft robots have a high degree of flexibility, which facilitates interaction with people and especially with people in need of care. The research is conducted in cooperation with the Chair of Intelligent Material Systems at Saarland University. 

The second area consists of research into innovative human-machine interaction approaches that can ensure effective interaction between the robot and the person in need of care. In order to design a successful application in care, it is essential to implement a high-quality user-centered design process for the development. Important aspects here include user experience, voice and gesture control, computer visioin and artificial intelligence, and the possibility of including such inputs in the robot control.

The AI in Education research group is concerned with the question of how artificial intelligence can be used to improve education and training in general and at IU in particular. The current focus is on the analysis of texts, such as the generation of question-answer pairs from study scripts, and the evaluation of videos using machine learning.

The purpose of anonymising data is to remove the personal reference from data that refers to specific persons. This is primarily necessary when data from productive operations is to be used for statistical evaluations and other data analyses, for example when health data is published for research purposes, or when customer and order data is evaluated. The research group deals with the challenges and approaches to solutions that arise in the practical implementation of anonymisation, primarily considering health management and learning analytics as areas of application.

The research group Diversity and Education in the Digital Age deals with the social and cultural transformation processes in the context of educational processes from an international as well as transdisciplinary perspective.

The complexity of digitalisation in an increasingly differentiated society is also restructuring the field of education. Education is seen both as

- self-development in a social context in the sense of Humboldt and as a 

- central resource in knowledge-based societies undergoing global change. 

This open concept of education enables a transdisciplinary perspective that does justice to the complexity of the research object.

The Munich Tourism Research Group deals with both regional and international tourism issues. Topics include tourism management, hospitality management and destination management. One ongoing research project is cultural tourism in the context of international travel flows - an empirical study of source markets and their impact on travel behaviour using the example of Munich's cultural institutions.

The change from content orientation to competence orientation in higher education teaching was forced by the Bologna reform and by a lack of application and practice orientation ("shift from teaching to learning"). 

What is required are teaching-learning-theoretical approaches that enable students to apply, reflect on and further develop their theoretical knowledge in practice. The professionalisation of practice-oriented teaching and the importance of enabling didactics through the interlocking of theoretical-scientific knowledge transfer and practical experience are thus increasingly in the focus of the didactic activities of university lecturers.

The spectrum of published contributions to the discussion on the use of different teaching methods in connection with practical institutions is not very extensive so far. This results in some white spots on this map of topics, which are to be illuminated in this research group. The first results are summarised in the anthology: "Insights into innovative and digital teaching concepts and cooperation with industry (in print)". 

The advancing digitalisation of the world of work is taking place along the entire entrepreneurial value chain and is causing a large amount of unstructured raw data, which exceeds the classic data storage, processing and analysis by conventional hardware. These large unstructured data volumes (big data) can be developed into smart data using modern data science methods. Due to their intelligent and quality-oriented processing, smart data produce new management and decision-making infomation for corporate management, which opens up a wide range of strategic support and design options for companies. They are therefore rightly considered the oil of our time and are an important resource for knowledge-oriented companies.

Against this background, the working group "Smart Data Analytics" is essentially concerned with the question of which data are valuable for a company and how they can be used meaningfully to increase the economic potential of the company. On the one hand, this question is examined in relation to industry specifics and, on the other hand, with a view to individual, central corporate functions such as human resources, controlling or marketing.

In the area of human resources, the object of investigation is subsumed under the term people analytics. In this context, the research group's field of activity encompasses the investigation of all conceivable behaviours of people in an organisational context with special consideration of digital data. In this context, behavioural role specifics of specialist and management positions are analysed by means of smart data as well as the data-driven optimisation of HR processes and the increase of agility in workforce management. In addition, methods for determining the optimal personnel structure will be researched within the framework of strategic workforce management. 

The life situations of children, adolescents, (young) adults and older people are subject to processes of change in society, which in turn have an impact on social work and its fields of activity. The research group "Transitions and Crises in the Lifespan" investigates current life situations and transitions (e.g. after school into study or training, from study into work or from work into retirement) and looks at the consequences of the Coronavirus pandemic, among other things. Opportunities and risks - such as excessive demands, exclusion, loneliness, worries about the future or financial hardship - but also possibilities of digitalisation and (intergenerational) solidarity in times of a pandemic are considered. How is social inequality possibly exacerbated or how do strategies emerge in times of crisis? How can social work actively intervene a respond to the respective challenges? Students are actively involved with their own research contributions. possibly exacerbated or how do strategies emerge in times of crisis? How can social work actively intervene and respond to the respective challenges? Students are actively involved with their own research contributions. 

The process engineering analyses group researches and develops microstructures with a greatly increased surface-to-volume ratio. This process intensifiation enables innovative chemical operations through almost gradient-free mixing processes and optimised material and heat transport processes. The application enables approaches to solutions, for example, for the global challenges of substituting fossil raw materials, carbon dioxide reduction and energy storage.