Pioneer in the research of intelligent systems: the Faculty of Technology

On 7 May 1990, the Technical Faculty is founded with a ceremony at the Center for Interdisciplinary Research (ZiF). After several years of development, the University receives an application-oriented, technological component. Interdisciplinary cooperation – especially with the natural sciences – has shaped the work of the Faculty of Technology ever since.

Rektor Prof. Dr. Karl Peter Grotemeyer gives a welcome speech on the occasion of the founding of the Faculty of Technology, 1990.
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Source: Universitätsarchiv Bielefeld, FS 133

Initial planning for the Faculty of Technology began as early as 1984. The Senate decision of 6 February 1985 to establish the Faculty of Technology already mentioned possible fields of research, such as research into artificial intelligence, which was to play a major role in the later Faculty – in part up to the present day. After a long conception phase, the then unique Diplom degree course in Informatics in the Natural Sciences was launched in the winter semester of 1989/90 – even before the Faculty was officially founded.

  • Members of the planning groups for Biotechnology and Information Technology after the Senate decision on the establishment of the Faculty of Technology, February 1985.
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    Photo: Helga Wehmeyer
    Source: Universitätsarchiv Bielefeld, FOS 01905
  • The professors of the new Faculty of Technology at the opening ceremony of the Faculty of Technology at the ZiF on 7 May 1990 (left to right): Prof. Dr. Erwin Flaschel, Prof. Dr. Robert Giegerich, Rektor Prof. Dr. Karl Peter Grotemeyer, Chancellor Karl Hermann Huvendick, Prof. Dr.-Ing. Jürgen Lehmann, Prof. Dr. Ipke Wachsmuth.
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    Photo: unbekannt
    Source: Universitätsarchiv Bielefeld, FOS 01906
  • A robot playing chess, 2000.
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    Photo: Norma Langohr
    Source: Universitätsarchiv Bielefeld, FOS 01901
  • Assistant researcher Robert Rae working with a robot, 2000.
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    Photo: unbekannt
    Source: Universitätsarchiv Bielefeld, FOS 01900
  • The robot ASIMO, developed in cooperation with Honda, brings coffee, 2007.
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    Photo: unbekannt
    Source: Universität Bielefeld
  • Prof. Dr. Jürgen Lehmann, Professor of Cell Culture Technology, runs a laboratory at the Faculty of Technology, 2008.
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    Photo: unbekannt
    Source: Universität Bielefeld
  • Dr. Sven Wachsmuth, Head of the Central Laboratory at CITEC, with the household robot Pepper, 2018.
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    Photo: F. Gentsch
    Source: CITEC

Research strength through research centres

The Faculty started with the departments of Information Technology and Bioinformatics. These departments were later joined by Biotechnology. The research strength of the Faculty of Technology is reflected in the four research clusters that the Faculty operates, partly with an interdisciplinary approach in cooperation with other disciplines. CITEC focuses on the interaction between humans and machines, CeBiTec is dedicated to interdisciplinary research in the life sciences., CoR-Lab tries to solve questions of semantic communication with machines, and the Research Centre for Mathematical Modelling offers a common platform for applications of mathematics to the natural sciences.